Tiny Planets

"Tiny Planets" is a United Kingdom television show aimed at pre-schoolers produced by Pepper's Ghost Productions, Ltd. The concept was created by the in-house creative team at Peppers Ghost: Andy Park (former commissioning editor at the BBC and Channel 4), Richard Davis and Antony Hatfield (who went on to work as Head Writer and Development Executive on the show). Strong character designs, the work of Ed Taylor, caught the eye of the late Nina Elias-Bamberger at Sesame Workshop (who developed Dragon Tales and other children's shows). The resulting project, Produced by Richard Morss, was screened in 17 global territories with its characters used in promotions by Nestle and McDonalds. Both the show and its interactive website won a BAFTA award in 2001. The episodes are quick 5-minute snippets designed to cater to pre-schoolers' short attention span. There are 65 five minute episodes, sometimes packeged as 16 thirty minute editions.

Tiny Planets follows Bing and Bong on their adventures in the Tiny Universe. Bing and Bong are two white furry creatures (Bing is big in size and resembles an amiable yeti, Bong is his smaller six-legged sidekick, somewhat like a cross between a tarantula and a poodle) who live on a planet with an apparently icy climate. Their fluffy white sofa catapults them across their solar system to explore the mysteries of light and colour, animation, sound and the water cycle. Their solar system has 6 other planets, each with a speciality to it (nature, sound, light and colour, technology, "self", and "stuff", respectively). Tiny Planets' surreal and captivating universe was created with CGI animation which gives the series a spectacular depth of scale and unique vibrant colour that captures young children's attention. This animation is also evident on their website and was the basis for their BAFTA award.

Tiny Planets encourages its pre-school age viewers to make their own discoveries as they solve preschool science problems. The program helps children examine how things work, strengthen their observation skills, consider underlying relationships and identify/test new ideas. It was the perfect antidote to the current TV fad of spoon-feeding children. Each 'silent' episode told a simple tale that children could watch by themselves and understand. Watching with a parent gave the added dimension of asking questions about what was happening, enhancing the experience and building a questioning mentality in the child. Unfortunately, such concepts were alien to certain markets (notably the USA) so the narrator character of Halley was added to the completed episodes on subsequent repeats.

The programme eventually did make it back to the U.S. on Sesame Workshop's former joint venture with Nickelodeon, the Noggin cable channel, in 2003. The 5 minute episodes would be shown in between 30-minute shows on the channel. However, the show proved so popular that by mid-2004 Noggin showed it in its own 30-minute block each day, showing several episodes in the time span. As evidence of its growing popularity in the United States, the Tiny Planets merchandise site (http://www.bingandbong.com) now splits after entry into separate UK and U.S. versions; a Spanish language version of the Tiny Planets website was also introduced. The Tiny Planets website also has a section imagining a NASA space mission to photograph the Tiny Planets universe which introduces young children to the U.S. space agency's work in space exploration.

However, since Sept. 2005, to allow for other new shows, Noggin has relegated it to being shown intermittently with fellow British import Tweenies at 6am ET/3am PT. In Jan. 2006, to allow for more new shows, Family Guy was permanently pulled from Noggin's schedule with Tiny Planets continuing to be shown intermittently at the very early morning 6am ET/3am PT slot. It was rumoured that despite its American creative origins (unlike Tweenies), it too would soon be pulled from the U.S. market. Further fueling this rumour was the removal of the Spanish language Tiny Planets website when Tiny Planets' time slot moved on Noggin. This finally happened on April 10th, 2006.

Unlike some other transplants of British children's shows to North America, such as Bob the Builder, the original British-accented voiceover remains in the episodes shown on Noggin and words not commonly used in the U.S. are not edited out.

The Tiny Planets

* The Home Planet: This is where Bing and Bong live and set out from every morning on a new adventure. It is an icy world, covered in snow-capped ice floes. Inside one of these is Bing and Bong's home, decorated in a steampunk idiom, with much brasswork. The main feature is the fluffy white sofa which not only doubles as a bed, but can be launched into space by a huge trebuchet, tethered to the Home planet by a bungee cord.
* The Tiny Planet of Nature: A verdant and lush world, with trees, lakes, mountains and flowers. The seasons there are much like a stereotypically temperate part of the Earth, with snow in winter, hot sun in summer and falling leaves in autumn.
* The Tiny Planet of Sound: A rocky desert, with odd flora such as Pitch-Plants (extendible flutes that can be blown), maraca leaves and self-playing Tomtom trees. Flockers and Locals often hold concerts here. The planet is surrounded by a swarm of small asteroids, which spilars from pole to pole.
* The Tiny Planet of Stuff: Shaped like a huge Möbius strip and patterned like pink-and-blue graph paper, this is where Bing and Bong solve problems involving arithmetic, logic and geometry.
* The Tiny Planet of Light and Colour: An environment where Bing and Bong explore optical phenomena. Around the planet there is a wide, circular, semi-transparent band inlaid with parallel strips of ever-changing colours. The landscape is similar to a desert, and the most notable features are the bullet-shaped rock pillars with faint coloured spots on them.
* The Tiny Planet of Technology: A large brass sphere, with four tethered satellites: two cubes and two spheres. The action takes place inside this planet, with an emphasis on structures and principles of physics.
* The Tiny Planet of Self: A loose cluster of rocky outcrops floating in a sunny atmosphere, linked by rows of stepping-stones. There are pagoda-like pavilions and a sports arena here, and local transport is by sky-boat. Lessons of health and good manners are learned here.

Cast

* Bing: large bipedal white furry alien. Owns TARDIS-like satchel containing useful items.
* Bong: small hexapodal white furry alien.
* Flockers: armless ostrich-like aliens. Each Tiny Planet has its own species. Flockers may have one or two legs and one or two heads. They exist in a multitude of colours, and they hatch from eggs.
* Locals: small, almost featureless aliens often but not always resembling squeaking, bouncing colourful eggs with eyes and occasionally ears. On the Tiny Planet of Self there is at least one cube-shaped Local.
* Cheesewheel Monster(?): On the Tiny Planet of Stuff there is a large cheesewheel-shaped creature with a capacious mouth who in one episode devours Bing and Bong's entire picnic cake in one gulp and then rolls away.
* Robots: segmented spherical creatures with mechanical arms and helicopter rotors.
* Halley: a small wide-eyed alien who provides a running commentary from her flying saucer and "films" the action with a remote camera to provide a summary at the end of the episode. The character did not feature in the series as originally broadcast, and was subsequently added to clarify the plots to less sophisticated audiences. She is voiced by the singer of the theme song and has a British accent that is kept in U.S. showings.

Theme Song

Bing and Bong ( [echoing] Bing and Bong, Bing and Bong, Bing and Bong)
Heroes of the Universe
Adventure every day
From their home in space

Bing and Bong ( [echoing] Bing and Bong, Bing and Bong, Bing and Bong)
There's a tiny planet calling
A new exciting day
And we're on our way

(note: this song repeats instrumentally throughout each show, but also combines original music)

External links

* [http://www.tinyplanets.com Official "Tiny Planets" website]
* [http://www.cakeentertainment.com/pages/cat_tiny.htm ] "Cake Entertainment" website.