±«Óãtv

A top team of some of the best animators in the country are being put together to create OOglies, an innovative comedy show for C±«Óãtv.

Commissioned from ±«Óãtv Scotland's children's department, OOglies is a fast-paced sketch show which sees everyday household objects come alive with a simple pair of googly eyes.

The OOglies world will "be home" to more than 70 characters such as The Scramblers, a trio of motorbike riding stunt eggs, Lonely Sprout, a cheery little sprout who just wants to make friends, and Devious Blender, an evil blender who deceives fruit into getting into him, and many more!

Running alongside on bbc.co.uk/cbbc will be an OOglies game, collectables and exclusive online animations looking at some of the key characters.

The commission, by C±«Óãtv Controller Anne Gilchrist, is for two 13 x 15-minute series, a total of five-and-a-half hours of animation which will be produced in a block over five months in Glasgow, with the first series going out on C±«Óãtv in the summer.

Top-rated names have been secured as the Lead Animators – Mole Hill (Creme Egg and Dairylea commercials, Yoho Ahoy for ±«Óãtv Worldwide) and Bruce Husband (Little Robots for Cosgrove Productions, Haunted Hogmanay for Ko Lik Films).

The rest of the animation team includes Sara Barbas (Wallace & Gromit – The Curse Of The WereRabbit), Sue Guy (Postman Pat – Special Delivery Service), Timon Dowdeswell (Fireman Sam), Andy Kaiser (Celebrity Deathmatch), Kim Emson (Bob The Builder) and Julia Louise McLean (Haunted Hogmanay) .

Peter Morgan (Red Dwarf, In The Night Garden) is also on board as Director of Photography and the design team is being headed up by Laura Donnelly (Half Moon Investigations, Legit).

Using digital animatics as moving storyboards together with new stop-motion software technology, the aim is for each animator to produce 20 to 25 seconds a day – which is four times the normal rate of production for stop-frame animation.

The series has been created and written by in-house ±«Óãtv Scotland team Tim Dann, series producer Nick Hopkin and Austin Low, with Sue Morgan as Executive Producer.

Andy Wyatt (ex-Aardman and Fictitious Egg), currently Head of Animation at University College Falmouth, will be the Animation Supervisor.

Series Producer Nick Hopkin said: "This is a major project for ±«Óãtv Scotland. As far as we know there hasn't been an animation project on this scale in Scotland before now.

"Through the success of Wallace & Gromit, people have become familiar with stop-frame animation and characters made with modelling clay, but OOglies will be a new spin with actual everyday real objects – for the most part – coming to life, having fun, sometimes misbehaving, and communicating with their googly eyes. The pace of the series will be fast, furious and funny."

Donalda MacKinnon, Head of Programmes, ±«Óãtv Scotland, said: "This is another major commission for our Children's Department, which has recently notched up commissions ranging from game shows such as Copycats and Roboidz, hilarious invention show Ed + Oucho's Excellent Inventions, CBeebies science show Nina & The Neurons as well as its long-running network success, Raven."

HM