Toytown
Toytown was a BBC radio series for children, broadcast for "Children's Hour" on the Home Service. The plays were based on a set of puppets created by S. G. Hulme Beaman, who also wrote the stories for the series. The first "Toytown" plays were broadcast in 1929, and the pool of stories was re-used until the end of "Children's Hour". There were 31 plays in all. During the 1970s, most of the plays were adapted as short films which were broadcast on ITV. The series starred Larry the Lamb, the central character, and his clever sidekick , Dennis the Dachshund. In each story a misunderstanding, often arising from a device created by the inventor, Mr. Inventor, occurs which involves Ernest the Policeman, the disgruntled Mr Growser the Grocer and the Mayor. During the early-1950s series on BBC Children's Hour, Larry the Lamb was always played (at least when broadcast from London) by Derek McCulloch, Dennis at various times by Norman Shelley, Ernest Jay and Preston Lockwood, the Mayor by Franklyn Bellamy and Felix Felton, Ernest the Policeman by Arthur Wynn, Peter Claughton and Stephen Jack and the Inventor usually by Ivan Samson. The opening music was  The Parade of the Tin Soldiers by Leon Jessel. Radio plays. The first radio performances were as follows: Television. A stop-motion television series using titles such as "Stories from Toytown Featuring Larry the Lamb" was broadcast on ITV between 1972 and 1974. Twenty-six of Hulme Beaman's stories were adapted for television by his friend Hendrik Baker. These were released on video by Inter Ocean Video over five volumes in 1981 and 1982. See also. The Noddy stories, written from 1949 to 1963 for children by author Enid Blyton, take place in a location called Toyland. Toytown Toytown