Children's TV icons the Clangers are making a comeback on the BBC.
The much-loved animated television show will air its first new episodes in 45 years on CBeebies, it has been announced. CBeebies, Coolabi, Smallfilms and US 24-hour pre-school network Sprout are teaming up on the project.
The pink, long-nosed, inventive and loveable mouse-shaped creatures will return to screens in 2015 in an ambitious £5 million production, which will be distributed by BBC Worldwide.
Clangers originally aired for two series and 26 episodes between 1969 and 1972 on the BBC. A four-minute election special also aired in October 1974.
The show's popular and surreal characters, who included Major, Mother, Small, and Tiny Clanger, plus the Soup Dragon and The Iron Chicken, will all be returning.
Factory Transmedia (Strange Hill High, Raa Raa the Noisy Lion) and award-winning puppet makers and producers Mackinnon and Saunders (Corpse Bride, Fantastic Mr Fox) are charged with reproducing the popular characters for modern audiences.
Peter Firmin, the original modelmaker, and Daniel Postgate, son of the show's creator Oliver Postgate, will be actively involved in the new series as executive producers.
"We hope to engage and entertain children of all ages and their families, just as Oliver and I did all those years ago," said Firmin. "The new series will include great storytelling with lots of heart. It will also be technically improved.
"When you watch the original Clangers, you have to make allowances for the limitations of the animation techniques when it was made. It was magical for its time, but this is a new Clangers for a new age!"
Daniel Postgate said that the project had not been "rushed into", and described the new series as "a labour of love".
CBeebies controller Kay Benbow added: "Nostalgia is a funny thing, and we always think very carefully about remakes or re-imaginings of classic children's programmes. Clangers is a programme that has an enduring magic.
"The new proposition has been built firmly upon the joyful foundations of the original, and will be produced by a team of exceptional talent which includes the extraordinary Peter Firmin. We are terrifically excited to bring this out-of-this-world series to our CBeebies audience."
