Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom

***Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom*** is a British animated children's television series. The show was created by Neville Astley and Mark Baker, and produced by Astley Baker Davies and Entertainment One (the companies responsible for *Peppa Pig*). Many of the actors who lend their vocal skills to characters in *Peppa Pig* also went on to work on *Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom*. These include John Sparkes, Sarah Ann Kennedy, David Rintoul and David Graham.

## Summary

The show is set in the Little Kingdom which is hidden among thorny brambles. The Little Kingdom is ruled by King and Queen Thistle mainly from the Little Castle, where they live with their three daughters Holly and younger twins Daisy and Poppy. Elves live at the Great Elf Tree, which plays the role of a school, library, mission control service, apartment block and factory for toys and wands. Elves hold the belief that they should never arrive late to anything. Civil fairies live in the Fairy Village, which consists of toadstools which have no food or comfort.

Fairies use magic and most of the fairies are named after flowers and plants. Elves have their own catchphrase, "...and I'm an Elf!" (or "We're Elves!"), and fairies also have their own catchphrase, commonly "I'm a fairy". Elves tell the time with wrist watches and/or clocks, while fairies tell the time in very unconventional ways. The Elves operate Elf Rescue, the Elf Farm and the Elf Windmill. King Thistle likes to play golf and crazy golf at the Royal Course. Ben and Holly have a ladybird friend called Gaston. Nanny Plum and the Wise Old Elf are characters too, and they have important jobs to do in the context of the show. Mr and Mrs Elf are Ben's parents. The Wise Old Elf is not married anymore but has three sons.

## Why It Rocks

1. It teaches morals better than what *Peppa Pig* would've taught children.
2. The animation, although it's what you'd expect from Astley Baker Davies, is even better than in *Peppa Pig* and appeals to kids. Notably, the characters actually face forward and they don’t look too weird.
3. Ben and Holly are entertaining and cute characters, along with other likable characters such as King Thistle and the Wise Old Elf.
4. It doesn't get repetitive since this show only had a slightly short run.
5. The introduction of Lucy and her being friends with the elves and fairies.
6. The finale was amazing, and the kids singing "Oompa Loompa" in the credits makes it even better.
7. Great voice acting.
8. Some funny moments here and there.
9. The intro can be very nostalgic to some viewers.
10. Julian Nott, who is known for scoring music for *Wallace and Gromit* (and *Peppa Pig*) had worked on this series.
11. The character designs are very cute and interesting. As mentioned above, they actually face forward without looking weird, unlike *Peppa Pig*.
12. The adult characters are very humourous, Nanny Plum being one example.
13. It has some depictions of British roots and culture. One episode, "The Elf Rocket" reveals the series is set somewhere in England/the UK because when it showed a screen that had a map of the Little Kingdom, it zoomed out to the world out from the UK where the dot pointing to the location is shown.
14. Unlike *Peppa Pig*, it's an imaginative fantasy with more fun and creative plots and scenarios.

## Bad Qualities

1. There are quite a few continuity errors, such as the way spells are cast and how Lucy is often said to have been introduced in the farm episode, when it was really the tooth fairy episode.
2. The wands have no real point to being sentient, infact, it only makes it disturbing everytime they get taken away.
3. Daisy & Poppy, while playful and cute characters, can be kind of annoying and mischevious at times.
4. The "We're elves!" catchphrase can get boring for a while.
5. Some of the minor elves and fairies are recolors of each other.
6. While the US dub on Comedy Central had good voice acting, it doesn't really make sense, since the show is hinted to be set in the United Kingdom.
	* Geipa Eatmore is miscast as Miss Jolly. That's right, an 18-year-old male is voicing a presumably middle-aged female.
	* Ne-Yo voicing Big Bad Barry may sound decent, but it wasn't really necessary since he only has a few lines.
7. The episode "Miss Jolly's Riding Club" was a bit mean-spirited because of the scene where nobody wanted to ride Samson the Slug because of what he is, resulting to him crying like a baby and just enough to make viewers feel sorry for him. In fact, even Miss Jolly didn't seem to care. It would have made viewers think it was going to be an episode teaching children to accept people of who they are and have a scene where someone has the mind to have sympathy for Samson when its the one way around.
	* Nanny Plum hurting a rat's feelings in "The Woodpecker" was also a bit mean-spirited.
	* The episode "Gaston to the Rescue" is also mean-spirited in the beginning because the adults kept shooing Gaston away even though their reasons are understandable. Despite the ending being decent, the adults didn't apologize for being mean to Gaston in the beginning.
8. The 2 episodes that focus around King Thistle's birthday not only show that King Thistle hates his birthday just because it means he's getting older, but the other characters were calling him old on his birthday, especially in their songs. Since calling a person "old" could be considered rude sometimes, this could be the true reason why King Thistle hates his birthday, and it's just like how Daddy Pig from *Peppa Pig* gets fat-shamed (people calling him fat).
9. Mrs. Fig was a bit of an ironical character. Although she is the teacher of the Magic School in the Little Kingdom, she loathes magic because, like the Wise Old Elf, she claims it always leads to trouble. If she dislikes, or supposedly hates magic, then why is she the teacher of the Magic School anyways?
10. Granny and Grandpapa Thistle were a bit of a bad influence on Daisy and Poppy as well as being the example of grandparents who spoil their grandchildren.
11. Entertainment One does similar things to the show's official YouTube Channel with the official channels of the ones for *Peppa Pig* mainly because of the clickbait thumbnails.
	* One example is the video titled "The Ice King", where King Thistle is icy-blue coloured and blows freeze breath at Ben and Holly, when there was never an episode about that (in fact, it kind of copied the Ice King from *Adventure Time*, so if Astley Baker Davies did make an episode about it, it would steal copyright from Cartoon Network and Frederator Studios and supposedly get sued)
	* There was the compilation video that had a scene from "Granny and Grandpapa" where Daisy and Poppy find Grandpapa Thistle hiding in a chest, it added a cutout of a scared and surprised Holly in front, making it look like she found Grandpapa as he peeks out of the chest and is frightened when it never happened in the story.
12. There was a massive plothole in the episode "Honey Bees". The Wise Old Elf wasn't wearing a beekeepers outfit since he was doing his job as the local beekeeper of the Little Kingdom, not even when he entered the bee hive. He even warns the guest (Ben, Holly, and Nanny Plum) about bees stinging them when they could have worn beekeeper outfits. If any viewer knew this and overlooks this easily, they can easily picture what it would be like if the Wise Old Elf did wear a beekeepers outfit.

## Reception

Common Sense Media gave the show a 4 out of 5, calling it "charming" and saying it promoted friendship and perseverance. The Toy Insider also gave the show positive review, saying it was entertaining and also taught positive values.