Brum (TV series)

Brum is a British children's television series about the adventures of a small, sentient vintage car named Brum. The series was originally narrated by Toyah Willcox, who also provided the voice for Brum and all characters. The show aired for three series between 1991 and 2002, with two revived CGI series on YouTube in 2016. The show first aired on BBC1 on the children's block, Children's BBC, and later on CBeebies.
Set in Birmingham, England (referred to as "Big Town" in the series) and produced by Ragdoll Productions, Brum was first broadcast in 1991 and the last live-action series was broadcast in 2002. It was initially directed, written and produced by Anne Wood and initially narrated by Toyah Willcox who also provided the voice for Brum and all the characters in story form. In series 3, all the characters including Brum were silent except for the car noises. Children provided commentary similar to silent film rather than a single narrator who spoke out the dialogue in a third-person story form. A new CGI-animated series, aimed at young pre-school children, was produced in 2016.
Brum is the story of a small, sentient yellow replica car named Brum who ventures out into the Big Town when his owner is not looking and gets up to all manner of adventures. Each episode begins and ends in the same way, with Brum leaving the other cars in the motoring museum when the owner's back is turned and heading out to explore the Big Town, before eventually returning to his place. Each series has had its own background music. From series 1–2, the introduction music was the same, but in series 2, it used different instruments. From series 3-5, the music became jazzy, and a new title sequence was directed by Nigel P. Harris.
Brum can express himself in various mechanical ways, including opening and closing his doors and bonnet, bobbing his suspension, and flashing and swivelling. The actors in Brum do not speak, with mime and off-screen narration used instead to continue the story. It was therefore easy to prepare episodes for airing in other countries, and the series has been broadcast in many parts of the world and in many languages.
The stories are mostly set in the city of Birmingham, England, since in addition to its onomatopoeic nature of a car engine revving, Brum (as a contraction of "Brummagem") is a common colloquial name for Birmingham City. Although later series make no direct mention of Birmingham, referring to it as the Big Town, many of the city's streets and landmarks can be seen in each episode.
The show was written by a range of writers. Anne Wood primarily wrote all the first series, while the second was written by Tom Poole, Dirk Campbell, Andrew Davenport and Morgan Hall. The last two series were written by Nigel P. Harris (5 Episodes) and the existing Ragdoll team.
The car itself – a half-scale replica of a late-1920s Austin 7 Chummy convertible – was designed and built by Rex Garrod. It is now housed at the Cotswold Motoring Museum in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, which is also where the opening and closing sequences of the programme were filmed.
The second series of the show was first broadcast on Children's BBC in October 1994 and consisted of 13 main episodes with the runtime of each episode being increased to 15 minutes. Toyah Wilcox reprised her role as the narrator.
Most episodes of this series were later edited by the BBC in the late 1990s, reducing the feature length of the 26 episodes down to 10 minutes to fit with the runtime of the first series. These were broadcast until 2001.
The third series featured a brand new format, depicting Brum as a superhero car, where he stops thieves and even has his own song at the end of every episode ("Brum Gets Things Done"). There is no narrator in this series, but instead, it has children commenting on what is happening. There were 40 episodes broadcast across 2001 and 2002 on Children's BBC and CBeebies.
The Bag of Gags are short episodes included on the UK DVD releases as well as being featured on half-hour versions of Series 3. They do not contain any narration and focus on comedy and slapstick.
During the development of the third season, Ragdoll renewed Video Collection International's Home Video deal on 12 June 2001, for seven years, in addition to the BBC acquiring the broadcast rights to the season. On 31 August, Ragdoll announced that the new season would premiere on 3 September, with the first VHS/DVD release of the new series to coincide on 8 October. On 7 October, Ragdoll launched the show internationally at MIPCOM, where the Australian Broadcasting Corporation acquired the Australian broadcast rights for the series to air on ABC for Kids in December, and on the ABC Kids channel in Spring 2002. The show would premiere on ABC TV on 11 March 2002.
On 17 January 2002, Ragdoll announced that the series would be one of the launching programs on the then-upcoming CBeebies channel in the United Kingdom. By MIPTV 2002 on 15 April, Ragdoll pre-sold the series to KRO in the Netherlands to air on their Z@ppelin channel's Kindertijd strand. They also announced that after MIPCOM 2001, NRK in Norway, SVT in Sweden and Kids Central in Singapore had also acquired the rights to the series in their respective countries. On 6 September, TV3 in New Zealand and RTÉ's Network 2 in Ireland acquired the broadcast rights, and premiered the series on 7 September and 10 September, respectively.
Discovery Communications later acquired the U.S. broadcast rights to the series and launched it on the Ready Set Learn! block on The Learning Channel and Discovery Kids in February 2003. In March, Ragdoll announced RTV Family Entertainment as the German partner for the series, with RTV confirming they would broadcast the show on their Ravensburger TV block on Super RTL at the end of June.
February 2016 saw the release of a rebooted Brum, made by the current owners of the franchise WildBrain. The show now takes place in a white-coloured setting instead of Big Town and features new friends for Brum. The first episode, "Brum's Car Wash Adventure", premiered on 4 March 2016 via the official Brum YouTube channel. A total of 25 CGI episodes were produced, with a second series currently airing.
Another series, this time animated using Toon Boom Harmony Animation called "Brum & Friends" premiered on the channel in September 2017.
A coin-operated kiddie ride of Brum was made by Amutec Ltd. The first version contains the original Brum theme song, and the second and third versions contain the rebooted closing credits song, also known as "Brum Gets Things Done".
Deirdre Sheppard of Common Sense Media, gave the series three stars out of five, saying, "When watching Brum, expect loud costumes, catchy music, silly dancing, and comedic choreographed coincidences. Since it moves much faster than most kids' programming, Brum is a good fit for kids with shorter attention spans and for parents who can't always stomach the monotony of other kids' television shows. Overall, it's a great pick -- just be sure to know when to fill in the gaps!."