Oliver Postgate

Richard Oliver Postgate (12 April 1925 – 8 December 2008), generally known as Oliver Postgate, was an English animator, puppeteer and writer. He was the creator and writer of some of Britain's most popular children's television programmes. Pingwings, Pogles' Wood, Noggin the Nog, Ivor the Engine, Clangers and Bagpuss, were all made by Smallfilms, the company he set up with Peter Firmin, and were shown on the BBC between the 1950s and the 1980s, and on ITV from 1959 to the present day. In a 1999 BBC poll Bagpuss was voted the most popular children's television programme of all time Description above from the Wikipedia article Oliver Postgate, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Works

Clangers: Complete Collection

In the late 60s, with the arrival of Colour TV, the BBC was keen for something different, modern and colourful. Postgate and Firmin rolled their eyes to the sky; not in desperation but for inspiration. They discovered a small blue planet populated by pink beings known as Clangers, a green dragon who cultivated soup and orange monopods who emerged from a magician’s top hat. Wonderful and exotic creatures would often visit, and were always very welcome, especially a chicken made of iron who lived on a nearby nest made of space junk. The BBC wanted something different and that’s certainly what they got.

Release Date:2023-10-30

Department:Visual Effects

Job:Animation

Character:Narrator (Voice)

Oliver Postgate: A Life in Small Films

A look at the life and career of Oliver Postgate

Release Date:2009-12-22

Character:Self

9.0

Peter Kay's Animated All Star Band: The Official BBC Children in Need Medley

Big Chris leads a chorus of characters from various animated children's television shows in a medley of seven songs: 1. "Can You Feel It" 2. "Don't Stop" 3. "Jai Ho!" 4. "Tubthumping" 5. "Never Forget" 6. "Hey Jude" 7. "One Day Like This"

Release Date:2009-11-13

Character:Bagpus (voice)

Vote Count:8

6.0

The Complete Ivor the Engine

Enjoy once again the adventures of Welsh steam engine Ivor, Jones the Steam and the good people at the Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company - not to mention the dragon and his chestnut barrow!

Release Date:2006-01-30

Department:Writing

Job:Writer

Character:Narrator / All

Vote Count:1

Don't Crash: The Documentary of the Making of the Movie of the Book of the Radio Series of 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'

An in-depth examination of the complete production of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005).

Release Date:2005-09-05

Character:Self

6.9

The Complete Bagpuss

Classic Children's Animation

Release Date:2005-04-04

Character:Narrator / All Voices

Vote Count:9

6.5

The Alchemists of Sound

A documentary about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, responsible for creating some of the most memorable television and radio music in British popular culture, including "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and Doctor Who (1963).

Release Date:2003-10-19

Character:Self

Vote Count:2

Tottie: The Story of a Doll's House

Tottie: The Story of a Doll's House

Tottie: The Story of a Doll's House is a 1984 animated television series. It is based on The Dolls' House, a children's novel written by Rumer Godden originally published in 1947, and focuses on the toys living in a Victorian Dolls' House belonging to sisters Emily and Charlotte Dane. The whole series had a very dark edge as the dolls had to wish very hard that good things would happen and they would not fall on misfortune. The series started with the phrase "Dolls are not like people, people choose, but dolls can only be chosen".

Release Date:1984-02-06

Department:Creator

Job:Creator

Character:Narrator, Mr. Plantagenet (voice)

Episode Count:[ 5 ]

Ivor the Engine
5.0

Ivor the Engine

Ivor the Engine is a British children's animation by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin's Smallfilms company. It is a children's television series relating the adventures of a small green locomotive who lived in the "top left-hand corner of Wales" and worked for The Merioneth and Llantisilly Railway Traction Company Limited. His friends included Jones the Steam, Evans the Song and Dai Station, among many other characters.

Release Date:1976-01-26

Department:Creator

Job:Creator

Character:

Episode Count:[ 97 ]

Vote Count:1

Vote for Froglet

As the general election is held in the UK, it's polling day for the Clangers on a small blue planet far away.

Release Date:1974-10-10

Department:Editing

Job:Editor

Character:Narrator

Bagpuss
6.7

Bagpuss

Bagpuss is a UK children's television series, made by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate from 12 February 1974 to 7 May 1974 through their company Smallfilms. The title character was, "An old, saggy, cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams." Although only 13 episodes of the show were made, it remains fondly remembered, and was regularly repeated in the UK for thirteen years. In 1999 Bagpuss topped a BBC poll for the UK's favourite children's TV programme.

Release Date:1974-02-12

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Character:Narrator / Bagpuss / Professor Yaffle / Mice

Episode Count:13

Vote Count:3

Clangers
7.0

Clangers

The Clangers are strange, long-nosed, pink, woolly creatures that live inside a small blue planet, which lies far, far away in space.Under the dustbin-lidded craters that cover the planet's surface is the cave system where the these strange yet cuddly extraterrestrials live. They share their world with the bizarre Soup Dragon, who lives in a soup well and provides them with their staple diet of green soup and blue string pudding; the Glow Buzzers, which supply light and tasty glow honey; and the tiny orange Froglets, magical creatures that live inside a travelling top-hat. Other beings encountered by the Clangers are the Iron Chicken, originally found in pieces and who, once reconstructed by the little planet's inhabitants, now lives in a nest in the sky; the large, odd, blue-skinned Skymoos; and the water-providing Cloud.

Release Date:1969-11-16

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Character:Narrator (voice)

Episode Count:14

Vote Count:10

The Pingwings

The Pingwings

Pingwings was an animated black-and-white children's television series of 18 ten-minute episodes broadcast in the United Kingdom on ITV in 1961. It first aired on Southern Television. Created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin of Smallfilms, it starred a family of penguin-like creatures who lived at the back of a barn on Berrydown Farm. The Pingwing characters were knitted by Firmin's wife Joan and the animation was achieved using the stop motion technique.

Department:Directing

Job:Director

Character:

Episode Count:12

Pogles' Wood

Pogles' Wood

Pogles' Wood was an animated British Children's television series produced by Smallfilms between 1966 and 1967 and screened by the BBC between 1966 and 1968 as part of the Watch with Mother series. The Pogles were tiny country folk who lived in a tree. The four principal characters were Mr Pogle, Mrs Pogle, their 'son' Pippin and a squirrel-like creature, Tog, who was Pippin's playmate. The 32 episodes were shot in stop-frame animation in Peter Firmin's barn or shed.

Release Date:1965-07-29

Department:Creator

Job:Creator

The Seal of Neptune

The Seal of Neptune

The Seal of Neptune was a children's programme created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin, also known for their works Ivor the Engine and Clangers. It was broadcast on BBC Television in 1960. Oliver Postage tells the sage of Sirus,the small seahorse who sets out beneath the waves with his friend Shrimp to return the Seal of Neptune to its rightful owner.

Release Date:1960-07-06

Department:Creator

Job:Creator

Character:Narrator

Episode Count:[ 6 ]

Ivor The Engine
8.0

Ivor The Engine

...Not very long ago, in the top left-hand corner of Wales, there was a railway. It wasn't a very long railway or a very important railway, but it was called The Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited, and it was all there was. And in a shed, in a siding at the end of the railway, lives the Locomotive of the Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited, which was a long name for a little engine so his friends just called him Ivor..." ...And that was how it began, back in 1959: one of Oliver Postgate's most loved creations, Ivor the Engine. It was a series about the Welsh adventures of a little green railway engine and his many friends. But Ivor wasn't an ordinary steam engine. He pretty much wished he was a person and ended up doing things like singing in a choir and swimming in the sea! One season of six, 10 minute, Black and White films was made for and screened by Associated-Red.

Release Date:1959-12-28

Department:Creator

Job:Creator

Character:Narrator / Ivor / Alice the Elephant

Episode Count:[ 1 ]

Vote Count:1

Noggin the Nog
8.3

Noggin the Nog

Noggin the Nog is a popular British children's character. Noggin himself is a simple, kind and unassuming King of the Northmen in a roughly Viking-age setting, with various fantastic elements such as dragons, flying machines and talking birds.

Release Date:1959-09-11

Department:Creator

Job:Creator

Character:Narrator

Episode Count:[ 27 ]

Vote Count:3

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