Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
The Upstairs Downstairs Bears
Animated children's television series From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
The Upstairs Downstairs Bears is an children's stop-motion animated series. Produced by Scottish Television Enterprises and Canada's Cinar (now WildBrain) in co-production with Egmont Imagination in Denmark, in association with Imagination Production and FilmFair Animation,[5] it is based on the eponymous series of books by the show's creator Carol Lawson. The series was broadcast on CITV in the United Kingdom and Teletoon in Canada. It consists of a single season of 13 half-hour episodes, or 26 shorts.[6]
Remove ads
Premise
The show is about two families of teddy bears who live in an Edwardian townhouse, and emphasizes the importance of sharing for the preschool audience.[7]
Voice cast
- Sonja Ball
- Kathleen Flaherty
- Oliver Grainger
- Harry Hill
- Emma Isherwood
- Sally Isherwood
- Michael Lamport
Episodes
Remove ads
Production
Illustrator and teddy bear collector[10] Carol Lawson was reportedly inspired to create the franchise when she came across "a 'downstairs' bear dressed as a maid".[8] It follows in the vein of the similarly-titled 1971 ITV drama Upstairs, Downstairs,[8] which also features the stories of two families living together under one townhouse roof.
Production of the series began in late 1998, with an anticipated budget of US$3 million.[11] By early 2000, this had increased to US$3.7 million, similar to that of comparable children's television.[7] The cost per episode was $430,000 as of October that year.[6]
Egmont Imagination headquarters in Denmark handled construction of the puppets and backgrounds, which were then sent to the FilmFair studio in London for filming.[8]
Remove ads
Broadcast
The Upstairs Downstairs Bears was first broadcast in English on CITV in the United Kingdom on April 9, 2001.[12] On Teletoon in Canada, it originally aired from September 3, 2001 to December 7, 2001.[9] In the United States, it was broadcast on Smile.[2]
On the French-language Canadian channel Télétoon, it was aired as Les oursons du square Théodore.[13] Internationally, it was also seen on Minimax in Hungary,[14] and Hop! Channel in Israel.[15]
Czech Television's ČT Déčko has made the full series available for digital streaming.[16]
Remove ads
Reception
Toonhound had a positive impression of the series, stating: "With its period set details, golden brown shades and soft, sepia light this little show evokes just the right Edwardian atmosphere..."[8]
References
External links
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads