The Wombles (2016 series)

The Wombles (2016 series)
Genre:	Children's Comedy
Created by:	Mike Batt
Directed by:	Mike Batt
Voices of:	Ray Winstone Mike Batt Bernard Cribbins
Opening Theme:	"Wombling Free" by Mike Batt
Country of origin:	England
Original languages:	English
Original network:	Milkshake! (planned)
No. of episodes	52 (planned)
Premiere date:	October 24th, 2016 (Cambridge Film Festival)

The Wombles (2016 series) was a CGI animated series based on the original series by Elisabeth Beresford and was going to be produced by Dramatico Productions, and it was going to be directed by Mike Batt and intended to be on Milkshake! in 2016.

Production

Wikipedia

A CGI animated series of 52 episodes, under the guidance of Mike Batt's Dramatico Productions, who bought the rights to The Wombles for Channel 5's pre-school slot Milkshake!, was announced in 2013, intended for airing in 2015. Ray Winstone and Cribbins were confirmed as the voices of this new series. Only two of the planned episodes were screened, however, at the Cambridge Film Festival in November 2016. Batt filed for bankruptcy in September 2017, and resigned as director of Dramatico Productions.

Characters

Returning Characters

• Great Uncle Bulgaria – the oldest and wisest of the Wimbledon Wombles and their leader.
• Tobermory – an engineer and an skilled inventor.
• Orinoco – a shirker who loves to sleep and eat food.
• Bungo – an over-enthusiastic and a bossy Womble, yet he is Orinoco's best friend.
• Tomsk – an athletic but rather dim Womble.
• Wellington – scientifically inclined, but very insecure and absent-minded.
• Madame Cholet – a very kind-hearted but short-tempered female Womble, and the cook of the Wimbledon burrow.
• Alderney – a pretty and precocious young Womble and Madame Cholet's assistant with a slight disregard for the rules.

New Characters

• The Womblies – cute pre-school ankle-biter style Wombles who attend the kindergarten.
• Clark Womble – a mild-mannered newspaper reporter from America that would've appear in the episode "Super Womble".
• Mungo – an unknown character dressed as an explorer that would've appear in future episodes of the show.

Episodes

1. Rocket Womble: Wellington dreams of going to the moon and builds himself a space rocket out of old dustbins. Much to Tobermory’s surprise, Wellington manages to fly his rocket high over London – launched with a giant spring.
2. Green Cake: Madame Cholet bakes a perfect cake with the help of Tobermory’s rather chaotic new mixing machine. Orinoco’s nose is inevitably drawn to the wonderful smell: could he resist temptation?
3. Super Womble: Tomsk decides to make a Super Womble outfit out of old stuff that he's found.
4. Orinoco Kid: The premise of the episode would've been Orinoco imagining of being a cowboy in the Old Westerns in the Wild, Wild West.
5. The Womblevision Song Contest: the band enters the Womblevision Song Contest – but WABBA are up against them. Who will win?
6. An Unknown Christmas Episode (2016): "unknown"

Trivia

• It was stated in one of The Tidy Bag blogs that "at times the language has been modernised for the kids of today – one of the first phrases we heard was “totally awesome”. But such contemporary expressions are only occasional, and children of the seventies needn’t worry about the overall tone."

Gallery

Opening

Screenshots

Rocket Womble

Green Cake

Green Cake #2

Concept Art

Mike Jupp

A character design of "Clark Womble".

An early character design on what Orinoco the Superwomble would've looked like.

The finalized design of Orinoco the Superwomble.

A storyboard for "Super Womble"; that was planned to come out in 2016.

A storyboard for "Orinoco Kid"; that was also planned to come out in 2016.

A character design of an unknown character named "Mungo".

A prop design of one of Tobemory's inventions; his Music Machine.

Miscellaneous

WABBA; a parody to a Swedish pop group; ABBA would've appear in the episode "The Womblevision Song Contest".

A reference view of "The Womblies".

Early Development (2013-15)

Videos

Ray Winstone Wombles TV voice over session

(This video features one of the clips from the episode "Rocket Womble".)