Albie

"Albie" is a Cosgrove Hall-produced animated series about a 6-year old boy with a wild, distorted imagination. Unfortunately, this gets him into trouble with his friends, family and his neighbour, the grouchy Mr. Kidhater-Cox. Albie was created by award-winning children's author Andy Cutbill and was based on his own childhood. Andy also helped redevelop Rupert and Friends for Channel 5.

The concept of Albie involves a small boy who keeps encountering exotic animals in his garden whose sole purpose seem to be to get him into trouble. This includes a herd of Welsh water buffalo on a mission to nick the bath from Albie's house, Geordie elephants obsessed with buns and a couple of sahara-missing cockney camels living in the sand-pit. Albie would interact with the animals in the same way Calvin would with Hobbes, leaving the viewer to make their own mind up as to what was real and was not.

From a technical point of view, the show is noteworthy as the human characters and backgrounds were 2D, while the animals were all 3D CGI, with the two elements composited together. 3D animation was done by the shortlived but talented CHD department of Cosgrove Hall Films.

Warped, funny, with extraordinary plots, most episodes end with the innocent Albie getting the blame, and some very angry person shouting "ALBIE!"

Credits

; Created by : Andy Cutbill; Writers : Andy Cutbill Jonathan Trueman, Phil Jackson, David Bolton, Chris Fenna; Voices : Janet James, Rob Rackstraw, Marc Silk, Melissa Sinden; Music : Keith Hopwood; Designer : Andy Cutbill; Art Director : Steve Maher; Animation Director : Claire Grey; Supervising Animation Director : Chris Fenna; Produced and Directed by : Franc Vose; Executive Producer : Mark Hall