The Gublins | |
---|---|
Also known as | The Gublin Legends |
Created by | Gordon Murray |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
No. of series | 1 |
No. of episodes | 13 |
Production | |
Running time | 5 minutes |
Original release | |
Network | BBC One |
Release | December 24, 1977 1978 | –
The Gublins (also known as The Gublin Legends [1]) is a stop-motion children's television show broadcast between 1977 and 1979. It was the final animated series made by British animator Gordon Murray, the creator of Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley [2] and was shown as part of the Saturday morning children's TV show Multi-Coloured Swap Shop on BBC One. [3] Each episode was 5 minutes long with Murray introducing each one directly to camera. [1]
The series related various folk tales told in verse. [4] The Gublins themselves were chimp-like creations [4] [5] (the word "Gublin" is a pun on the humanoid creature " goblin") that featured in a series of Tall Stories, narrated in rhyming couplets to a simple acoustic soundtrack provided by Freddie Phillips.
There were thirteen episodes filmed although only twelve are known by name. [3] [6] The folk tales came from a variety of traditions, including Cornish, Bohemian and Arabic sources. [3] The first episode, Obadiah and Flo, was broadcast on 24 December 1977. [7] The named episode titles are:
Three of these stories appeared in the BBC Swap Shop Books (2,3 & 4) as photostories. There were also five photostory books published separately titled "Young Gublins Picture Storybooks". They were completely new stories called:
A VHS entitled "Children's Seventies TV Favourites" featuring episodes of The Gublins was released by Contender studios in 1998. [1]