Amazing Animals

***Amazing Animals*** (commonly known as ***Henry's Amazing Animals***) is a 1996-2000 British-American educational children’s live-action/animated nature documentary programme produced by Dorling Kindersley Vision and Partridge Films in association with the Disney Channel. it combines documentary footage with CGI animation, cartoon animation and sometimes claymation. It had four seasons broadcast from 1996 to 1999 on the service. It also aired on Family Channel in Canada. The entire series was released onto VHS after its airing.

The main character of the series is Henry the Lizard, an anthropomorphic CGI green lizard, who interacts with the unseen narrator. In all English language versions, Henry is voiced by Eric Myers. The narrator is voiced by Tom Clarke-Hill in the US version while in the UK version Nigel Greaves voices the character.

The series is an original creation and is not based on a book title. The series did spawn a collection of associated media including a companion book, a board game (The Really Amazing Animal Game) and a PC game (Amazing Animals Activity Center).

## Style

All the episodes roughly follow the same format. Henry is often either facing a predicament or doing work relating to the episode’s title, which he often resolves by the end of the episode and often learns some sort of lesson in the process. Along the way, he meets animals associated with the episode theme. The narrator plays the role of the long-suffering straight man compared to Henry’s exuberant and mostly childish character.

To break up the segments with Henry and the narrator, there are several short cartoon segments in each episode that often loosely relate to the episode’s theme. Mostly the cartoons in each episode are an anthology, each containing different characters in different situations but sometimes an episode may focus on the same few characters for its entire length. Across the four series, a total of forty-two different characters were created.

The episodes also have two recurring segments. The first is Henry's Special Report. In the first two seasons, the report is depicted as being a school report while in the later two seasons it changes to being a news report. In both formats, the report is often wildly inaccurate and requires the narrator to give the correct information afterwards. The first season portrayed the report using claymation, although later seasons change it to simple slideshow-like images on transparent backgrounds.

The second recurring segment is the Golden Gecko Award. Henry picks three animals relating to the episode and gives them awards – often the winning animal does not appear anywhere else in the episode. This segment tends to be taken more seriously, with Henry doing all the narration and getting annoyed at the Narrator interrupting. While Henry’s Report appears in every episode, The Golden Gecko Award does not appear in "Amazing Underground Animals", probably because of timing issues.

Amazing Animals has two different types of animal footage combined into each episode. There are animals filmed in a studio in front of a green-screen (many were filmed for the earlier Eyewitness series), as well as stock footage from other wildlife documentaries. Because of its links to Partridge Films, almost all the stock footage used in Amazing Animals originally comes from Partridge Film documentaries. Amazing Animals also, uniquely for a Dorling Kindersley vision series, used stock footage from See How They Grow on several occasions.

### Introduction

The episodes in all four seasons have the same introduction sequence. It begins with a white flash of light that cuts to stylised flashing and changing animal symbols. When all eleven symbols appear together (clockwise from top-left – a hare, a snake, a frog, an elephant, an insect, a deer, a second snake, a turtle, a spotted big cat – either a leopard or jaguar – a bird and a fish) on top of the box, the view zooms in towards a combination lock that rotates until an image of Henry the Lizard is formed. The Henry image flashes from grey to full colour, and the box opens with a flash of light.

Inside the box it is completely white, and a large crowd of animals are shown emerging. The animals that emerge include paper kite butterflies, scarlet macaws, European brown common frogs, sun beetles and fire salamanders (all with at least some digitally recoloured individuals), a West European hedgehog, a grey wolf, two Great Dane dogs, a wild boar, a crested porcupine, two black leopards, a pancake tortoise, an Asian small-clawed otter, a black-and-white ruffed lemur, fruit bats, a roe deer, a tiger and a cougar cub.

As the cub runs in front of the screen, it cuts to the ‘Amazing Animals’ logo with Henry and a single butterfly. As the butterfly flies away, Henry crawls away under the logo and several of the cartoon characters appear. Squirrel and Parrot are chased away by Gorilla but when Rattlesnake emerges, both Gorilla and Rattlesnake startle each other and flee off opposite sides of the screen. Henry now appears on top of the logo, raises his eyebrows and falls off the back. At this point the title card animal moves across the screen and the main logo disappears – the narrator starts to read out the title of the episode which appears on the screen (“Welcome to the world of amazing >episode title here<”), after which a partial logo (with just the word ‘Amazing’) drops down and appears to knock the title. The screen then fades to white and the episode begins.

An exception to this is in Scaly Animals, where Henry interrupts the narrator as he starts to read out the title of the episode (“Hey! This one’s my show, amazing scaly animals!”)

Although it is never referred to as such in the television programmes, in the tie-in game Amazing Animals Activity Centre, Henry calls the box which appears in the opening credits as his toybox.

## Programmes

A total of fifty-two episodes of Amazing Animals were created, airing in four seasons that each contained thirteen episodes. There tended to be little overlap in subject matter within a season, but sometimes episodes in different seasons would explore similar themes (for example, Mini Beasts in season one and Creepy Crawly Animals in season three).

The four seasons, and their year of airing, are:

Season One (1996)

Season Two (1997)

Season Three (1998)

Season Four (1999)

## Cast and characters

### Henry the Lizard

**Henry the Lizard** (voiced by Eric Meyers) is the show's main protagonist. a small green CGI-animated gecko with purple spots and yellow eyes. he is portrayed as foolish, enthusiastic and immature. he is also an inventor and has obsessions for pizza and his cousins.

### The Narrator

The **Narrator** (voiced by Thomas Clarke-Hill in the US version, Nigel Greaves in the UK) is Henry's co-star who teaches him about animals, although he is never shown (except sometimes his footsteps are heard or we see from his eye-view) and almost never named (Henry usually refers to him as "Smart Guy" or "Wise Guy"). he is portrayed as wise, serious, mature and an expert on wildlife.

Some episodes come close to showing the Narrator on-screen - in *Animals Around the World*, Henry is certain he has a picture of the Narrator within his gallery - but he had his thumb in the camera, to the Narrator's annoyment. In *River Animals*, he is heard knocking on the door and walking around Henry's home.

The Narrator usually maintains a sensible attitude - but in some episodes there are subversions to this rule. In some cases, he laughs along with Henry's jokes, or even tells jokes of his own. In Animals *Around the World*, he and Henry sing the ending musical number together. In Scary Animals, he appears genuinely scared when Henry's reflection takes on an evil personality.

### Crab Tuesday

**Crab Tuesday** (vocal effects provided by Fred R. Newman) is the show's main deuteragonist. he is a small red CGI-animated hitchhiker crab with yellow eyes. his first appearance was in the Season 2 episode "Seashore Animals" where Henry met him on a deserted island and named after Robinson Cruesoe's "Man Friday", and Tuesday has been his best friend and assistant ever since. Henry usually communicates by snapping his pincers, although in "Animal Hunters", he is heard mumbling "I don't know" to Henry.

### Cartoon characters

*See Also Cartoons*

Various cartoon characters appear.

* Eagles
* Tyrannosaurus
* Rattlesnake
* Tiger
* Squirrel
* Lizards
* Elephant
* Bat
* Fish
* Camel
* Gorilla
* Caveman
* Mole
* Bear
* Stickman
* Chicks
* Hen
* Rooster
* Owl
* Chameleon
* Tortoise
* Crocodile
* Frog and Toad
* Parrot
* Porcupine
* Mouse
* Whale
* Rhinoceros
* Beavers
* Snail
* Rabbit
* Dog
* Skunk
* Spider
* Octopus
* Vulture
* Woodpecker
* Flea
* Dung Beetle
* Butterfly
* Gibbon
* Fly
* Mosquito
* Bee
* Beetles
* Crab
* Pigeon
* Carnivorous Plant
* Lamb

## Availability

For a long time, much of the series was considered to be lost media. However, after multiple years of effort, all fifty-two episodes can now be found online on unofficial channels. There has been no official release of Amazing Animals material since the publication of the VHS. most of the episodes can be found on Youtube.

## Awards and accolades

In 1998, the programme was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Pre-School Series and also garnered a score of other awards.

In 1999, head of children’s series at Partridge Films, Michael Lekes, described Amazing Animals as their flagship series, which was the most successful series in terms of ratings, accolades and market response.

**Cartoon Characters**: \* Eagles • Tyrannosaurus • Rattlesnake • Tiger • Squirrel • Lizards • Elephant • Bat • Fish • Camel • Gorilla • Caveman • Mole • Bear • Stickman • Chicks • Hen • Rooster • Owl • Chameleon • Tortoise • Crocodile • Frog and Toad •
• Parrot • Porcupine • Mouse • Whale • Rhinoceros • Beavers • Snail • Rabbit • Dog • Skunk • Spider • Octopus • Vulture • Woodpecker • Flea • Dung Beetle • Butterfly • Gibbon • Fly • Mosquito • Bee • Beetles • Crab • Pigeon • Carnivorous Plant • Lamb

**Voice Actors**: Eric Meyers • Tom Clarke-Hill
**Season One**: Tropical Birds • Animal Disguises • Nighttime Animals • Animal Appetites • Animal Survivors • Animal Senses • Animal Weapons • Animal Builders • Armoured Animals • Mini-Beasts • Animal Babies • Poisonous Animals • Animal Journeys
**Season Two**: Birds of Prey • Desert Animals (Amazing Animals) • Scary Animals • Animal Records • Animal Colors • Animal Mothers • Animal Pets • Seashore Animals • Animal Families • Endangered Animals • An Animal Year • Prehistoric Animals • Monkeys and Apes
**Season Three**: Animal Hunters • Animal Talk • Slimy Animals • Rainforest Animals • Animal Acrobats • Underwater Animals • Animal Neighbors • Giant Animals - Creepy Crawly Animals • Farm Animals (Amazing Animals) • Animal Changes • Extinct Animals • Animal Eggs
**Season Four**: Around the World • Polar Animals • Clever Animals • Underground Animals • Animal Helpers • Woodland Animals (Amazing Animals) • Mountain Animals • Backyard Animals • Tiny Animals • Animal Partners • Scaly Animals • River Animals • Animal Flight