- Pullover Productions
Pullover Productions Ltd was a
television production company responsible for a number of UK children's programmes in the 1980s. The company specialised inpuppetry usingblack light theatre techniques, particularly animating everyday objects such as umbrellas, dishcloths, balls or shoes.History
The company was founded by two Czech
refugees from the 1968 invasion of Prague, Susan Kodicek and Rosta Cerny, along with producer Maggie Clarke. Kodicek and Cerny had worked together in the theatre for a number of years as the "Black Theatre Group of Prague" (as distinct from the better known "Black Light Theatre of Prague "), performing puppet-based Variety acts withMike Yarwood andPaul Daniels , and two full-length shows, "Plop" and "Big Me and the Wilting Witch" forGreenwich Theatre . They moved into television whenGranada TV gave them a regular slot on new children's show "Vision On". They soon pitched a new idea for a further series "Once Upon a Time", which featured a short black-theatre puppetry sequence accompanying a story with a similar theme. The show ran for several years, first with presenterPeter Davison , later with singerMark Wynter ; it transmuted into "Sounds like a Story". They also contributed characters named Mr and Mrs Macaroni (notable for speaking a language consisting entirely of the names of Russian composers) to "Our Backyard".Pullover
Keen to create something more of their own, Kodicek and Cerny created Pullover Productions to make a series for pre-schoolers called Pullover. The programme was about a stuffed toy that comes to life each night and has adventures in the bedroom of its owner (played by Kodicek's son Danny). In most of the episodes, Pullover would find himself in a different world, where he would meet a friend, get into some mild peril and finally return to his world and his bed.
The programme was notable for the fact that apart from a few lines spoken by the child at the beginning (he would read a short story to Pullover before going to sleep, introducing the subject of the episode), there was no speech. Instead, all episodes were scored with music throughout, providing a kind of 'narration'.
Only thirteen episodes of "Pullover" were produced (for
Central TV ), although at its peak in 1982 it reached number 3 in the children's viewing charts.FoxTales
Following "Pullover", the company created a more mainstream programme, "FoxTales", adapting a number of classic Eastern European
folk tales to a cast of animal characters, narrated by Grandpa Fox (again Peter Davison). The show was well received but suffered from the fact that budgets for children's programming were being cut as imported animated series became increasingly cheaper to obtain.Later work
Kodicek and Cerny continued to produce programmes for a few more years, but eventually moved on. Kodicek went on to write and direct a feature film about her experiences as a child in
Stalinist Czechoslovakia , and now teaches story structure for script writers. Cerny works for the German-language branch of Czech radio.External links
* [http://imdb.com/title/tt0487063/combined FoxTales at IMDb (Contains some errors)]
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