Earlier this year I wrote about how some 90's Children's TV classics were appearing on Britbox. In a continuing trend for old content to be made available on demand. The BBC have now released Brum and Bob The Builder on BBC iPlayer.
All three series of Brum are available, 56 episodes in total. This is the original Ragdoll Productions version. The first and second series were made in 1991 and 1994 respectively. The show was revived for a third series in 2001.
All nine series of the original series of Bob the Builder are available to stream which originally aired between 1998 and 2004. This doesn't include Project Build It or Ready Steady Build or any of the other spin off's or recent revival.
I did have a watch of the first episode of Brum, living fairly close to Birmingham and visiting regularly it always interests me to see places I recognise on TV shows. Maybe one day I'll document the great 90's Kids TV that came from the UK's second biggest city.
I for one, welcome these shows being made available. I wonder if this is now the future? Instead of DVD releases and repeats on TV, classic shows can be made available to stream whenever. I certainly hope that over time more content is posted. Bodger & Badger and Chucklevision certainly get my vote to be made available on demand.
3 comments:
Due to Blogger's character limit, my comment will be in 2 to possibly 3 parts. Don't reply until I've finished the whole thing
There was a rumor that other programs were going to be added to BBCIplayer along with Bob The Builder and Brum including Chucklevision, both the old version and the 2003 reboot of Fireman Sam, Pingu, Grange Hill, Bodger and Badger, Byker Grove, among others. But that turned out to be a hoax in the end. Which appears to be the case since Fireman Sam's page on the BBC website had screenshots added to the episodes.
The latter was meant to be released on the same day as Bob and Brum, but didn't turn up. I'm disappointed with that since I had thought that the BBC were going to release the unaltered versions of the old Fireman Sam episodes in HD. For further context; when HIT Entertainment brought the rights to the show in 2001, they released the old version of Fireman Sam on DVD with new credits and title cards. The BBC were somehow still able to show reruns of the show and also air the 2003 reboot, and they did so on their Cbeebies channel. When they aired the old version, it had the original opening. But then in 2007 (the year which the Cbeebies channel began to come into its own), for whatever reason, the BBC decided to sell the rights to Cartoonito, and the latter company then made the CGI version, putting paid to distribution of the original unaltered episodes. For the longest time, the HIT versions with the new credits were the highest quality copies available. I thought that we would be able to see the original episodes in HD finally with this.
Part 2 of my comment:
A similar thing happened with Postman Pat. Since the first half of the old version had Pat driving a van with a crown on it, instead of the iconic royal mail variant, the opening titles got a shot for shot remake with the Royal Mail van replacing the crown van. The Shot for Shot remake was used when the show was being distributed in other countries like France, Australia, and Poland. Like with Fireman Sam, Cbeebies aired reruns of the old version of Postman Pat until the channel was ready to come into its own in 2007. Series 1 was aired, with Series 2 being completely glossed over. Unlike Fireman Sam, however, Cbeebies aired all Series 1 episodes (including the Crown Van episodes) with a modified version of the shot for shot remake of the intro with some shots being replaced by scenes from Pat's Difficult Day. When Series 1 was released on DVD in Spain in 2004, the modified intro used on Cbeebies reruns was the intro they used, with the Series 2 intro (complete with the logo and music from the Cosgrove Hall reboot slapped over it) being used on the 2014 UK DVD release.
On BBC News reports, though, a fully restored HD version of the original Crown intro, complete with clips from episodes that didn't have the obnoxiously flat color grading from the official Cbeebies reruns and DVD releases, was shown. When Ken Barrie passed away, the BBC actually posted the HD Restored version of the Crown intro on the news article about Barrie's death, but the video is now difficult to access, either because the BBC have taken it down, or there’s a bug which prevents it from being accessed. This could’ve been a good opportunity for the BBC to restore their old shows since they own the original film/videotape copies, and it’s a shame this all turned out to be a hoax in the end.
The only restored unaltered version of a classic BBC show made available to the public was Pingu. When Cbeebies aired reruns of the show for the very last time during the Mid-2010s, they put the classic episodes on BBCIplayer. It’s likely someone downloaded them from the website, but they most likely used a screen recorder instead of transferring them to MP4, so they would be quite useless in the end.
Part 3 of my original comment:
Overall, it's disappointing that the whole thing appeared to be a hoax in the end, since this could've been a good opportunity for the BBC to restore their old shows and distribute them. It's especially a good idea since it's near impossible to make new material during the Coronavirus pandemic, and Cbeebies is turning 20 in 2 years time after all. but it's likely that a miracle will occur. I contacted the BBC about whether or not the rumor that other programs were being added along with Bob and Brum was actually a hoax, and they told me to look out for future updates, which is a hint that they might be available at a later time. Here’s hoping this is true...
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