Camberwick Green
Camberwick Green is a British children's television series that ran from January to March 1966 on BBC1, featuring stop motion puppets. "Camberwick Green" is the first in the "Trumptonshire" trilogy, which also includes "Trumpton" and "Chigley". Background. The series was written and produced by Gordon Murray and animated by Bob Bura, John Hardwick and Pasquale Ferrari. Music was by Freddie Phillips while narration and song vocals were provided by Brian Cant. There are thirteen fifteen-minute colour episodes produced by "Gordon Murray Pictures". The inspiration for the name is believed to have stemmed from the East  Sussex village of Wivelsfield Green, supported by the nearby villages of Plumpton (Trumpton) and Chailey (Chigley). Each episode begins with a shot of a musical box which rotates while playing a tune. It is accompanied by the following narration: Then the lid, a hexagon constructed of six triangles in alternating colours, slowly opens up like an iris, or in the manner of a camera shutter, while the box smoothly revolves to the accompaniment of an exquisite Baroque minuet. A hexagonal platform bearing the motionless figure of the puppet character which will play a central role in today's episode, slowly  rises into position: the platform flush with the shifted triangular cover-tiles, which are now splayed open like the stiff petals of a flower; as the music-box comes to a halt with an audible click. After a brief introduction, the background appears and the story begins. The series is set in the small, picturesque (and fictitious) village of Camberwick Green, Trumptonshire, which is inhabited by such characters as Police Constable McGarry (Number 452), and the iconic Windy Miller, owner of a clanking old – but nevertheless efficiently functional – windmill and a firm believer in old-fashioned farming methods. The series  mixes contemporary technology with Edwardian costume and social attitudes. Almost all the characters have their own theme songs and travelling songs. There are other characters who never appear in the stories, including Mr Honeyman who (according to Peter Hazell's song) "keeps the chemist shop", and an unnamed clown or pierrot, who turns a roller caption to display the show's opening and closing credits. Each week the villagers undergo such domestic crises as a shortage of flour, a swarm of bees, a water shortage and rumours of an unwanted electrical substation being built in the village, but all problems  are happily resolved by the end of each episode. The episodes then conclude with the narrator bidding farewell to the puppet character who was seen at the beginning and is shown going back into the musical box. "Camberwick Green" has no overt fantasy content apart from the musical box. For the most part, it is simply about ordinary people doing everyday things, and perhaps for that reason it remains popular. Along with its two successors, the series was repeated many times on the BBC until 1985, and then on Channel 4 from 1994 to 2000. Episodes. Episode titles were given  in "Radio Times", but were not shown on screen. Characters. Pippin Fort. The staff and soldier boys of Pippin Fort are a regular feature of Camberwick Green, demonstrating their foot drill, working in the community, responding to emergencies, and (at a stage before "Trumpton" in the time-line) providing the local fire-fighting capability with their bright red mobile fire pump. Modern use. The 1970s pop band Candlewick Green shares its name with the originally planned title of the series. (Murray had planned to name the show "Candlewick Green" but found that the person writing his contract had misheard and  mangled the name; as he did not object to the new name, Murray went forth with the show under the mangled title.) In 1987 the indie group Pop Will Eat Itself sampled Brian Cant's "Here is a box..." introduction for the start of their song Razorblade Kisses. The song itself is an instrumental reprise of their song Evelyn, but played in a musical box style to make it sound similar to the Camberwick Green tune. In 1987, Windy Miller was the face of Windmill Bakery's wholemeal bread. Ceramic pots depicting Windy hugging a beehive and barrels of  marmalade and jam were made to tie in with the promotion. "Camberwick Green" was spoofed for a 1988 edition of "Spitting Image", as "Gamberwick Greenbelt". The 90-second sketch depicted a puppet Nicholas Ridley, described as "Old Nicky Ridley, the village idiot", using a front loader to demolish the whole village for redevelopment. In 2015, "Private Eye" resurrected the spoof as the "Camberwick Greenbelt" strip cartoon, offering satirical comment on social and political impacts on the British countryside. VIZ magazine produced two rather bleak spoof versions named Camberwick Greggs and Trumpton. In the former the baker is driven out of  business by the opening of a branch of Greggs nearby, and the latter revolves around a caricature of Donald Trump, building a wall between Trumpton and Chigley. The character Windy Miller and his famous windmill appeared in September 2005 along with some other "Camberwick Green" characters in commercials for Quaker Oats on television in the United Kingdom. The puppets and setting are all re creations, because Murray destroyed the originals in the 1970s. The original narrator, Brian Cant, auditioned to do the voice over for the commercials, before the job was instead given to Charlie Higson. Episode five of  the second series of the BBC's "Life on Mars" features a recreation of the opening of "Camberwick Green", with a puppet of the show's main character, Sam Tyler (John Simm), emerging from the musical box and despairing over his colleague, Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister), who can be seen in puppet form "kicking in a nonce" at the end. This later leads to Sam to threaten Hunt, telling him to "Stay out of "Camberwick Green"!" (a cross-reference to the popular and long-running police TV series "Dixon of Dock Green"). It emerges that Sam is tripping after being  accidentally overdosed in his hospital bed. Again, the voice over was not supplied by Brian Cant, but is delivered in a similar style. It differs from the original by saying: "This is a box, a magical box, playing a magical tune. But inside this box there lies a surprise. Do you know who's in it today?" The narration was provided by Brian Little, the co-founder of Hot Animation, the company that created the sequence. His recording was supposed to be a temporary guide track to help the animators time the shots, but the producers of "Life on  Mars" were content to retain it for the final version. The one-minute sequence was designed and animated by Paul Couvela, the supervising animator of "Bob the Builder". Windy Miller cameos in the closing sequence of the 2009 BBC Children in Need charity single Peter Kay's "Animated All Star Band" video. The music video to Radiohead's Burn the Witch pays homage to both "Camberwick Green" and "The Wicker Man". Caterham Cars released a limited edition model of their Seven range called the Sprint with one of the colour options as "Camberwick Green" Restoration and commercial releases. The original  masters of "Camberwick Green" – along with those of its sequels "Trumpton" and "Chigley" – were believed to have been lost, with most surviving copies tending to suffer from scratched, wobbly or grainy picture quality and a muffled soundtrack. However, when boxes of some original film were discovered in Gordon Murray's attic – with more footage then discovered by the BBC – the trilogy was restored and remastered for a Blu-ray release in 2011. However, as of 2019, Trumpton and Chigley have yet to have received a Blu-ray release. VHS. In 1984, eighteen years later after the broadcasts on BBC in  1966, Longman Video released the first four episodes, as part of its "Children's Treasury Collection". Later, in 1989, the BBC released a video with the last three episodes (including E12 "Mickey Murphy the Baker" as the first episode, E11 "Mr Carraway" as the second episode and E13 "Mrs Honeyman and her Baby" as the last episode). Then, in 1996–1997 Telstar Home Entertainment, as part of its "Star Kids" range released three videos. DVD and Blu ray. The digitally remastered "Camberwick Green" was released in December 2011 in one multi pack, comprising a Blu-ray disc and a DVD. Camberwick