The Animal Shelf is a British 1997–2000 children's television series produced by Cosgrove Hall Films and based on the books written and illustrated by British writer Ivy Wallace about a group of talking toy animals who live in Timothy's bedroom. Aimed particularly at pre-school children, the Animal Shelf first aired on ITV running for 4 seasons and 52 episodes, running from 25 June 1997 to 3 August 2000.[1]
The Animal Shelf | |
---|---|
Genre | Children's |
Created by | Ivy Wallace |
Developed by | John Sachs |
Written by |
|
Directed by |
|
Voices of |
|
Narrated by | Susan Sheridan (UK only) |
Theme music composer | Ernie Wood |
Opening theme | Five Soft Toys on the Little Blue Shelf |
Ending theme | Five Soft Toys on the Little Blue Shelf (Reprise) |
Composer | Ernie Wood |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 4 |
No. of episodes | 52 |
Production | |
Executive producer | Mark Hall |
Producers |
|
Production location | Unknown |
Cinematography | Unknown |
Editors |
|
Camera setup | Patrick Reets (model, Series 1 and 2) John Duffy (Series 3 and 4) |
Running time | 10 minutes per episode (approx.) |
Production company | Cosgrove Hall Films |
Original release | |
Network | ITV (CITV) (UK) |
Release | June 25, 1997 August 3, 2000 | –
Related | |
Mecharnics |
Every episode in The Animal Shelf series is 10 minutes long.
The series has also aired around the world including the ABC in Australia, KTV2 in Kuwait, RTÉ2 in Ireland as part of their children's block The Den, Dubai 33 in the United Arab Emirates, the children's television network K-T.V. World and M-Net (as part of their series of children's lineup blocks K-T.V.) in South Africa, Premiere 12 (as part of their children's block Kidz Blitz), Eureka Learning Channel and Kids Central in Singapore, PBS and Television Malta in Malta, TVB Pearl in Hong Kong, SVT and SVT Barnkanalen in Sweden, Wikkid Plus in Pakistan and TVNZ 2 and TVNZ 6 in New Zealand as part of their children's block Kidzone.
The series was seen on an American children's wrapper programme called It's Itsy Bitsy Time along with several TV series from overseas and aired on the Fox Family Channel in America and Treehouse TV in Canada in 1999 with the British voices being redubbed with American and Canadian voices.[2] The voices were directed by Canadian voice actress Susan Roman who is best known for voicing Sailor Jupiter in the dubbed anime Sailor Moon. Roman also directed the American and Canadian voices for another British children's animated television series seen on It's Itsy Bitsy Time, Tom and Vicky.
The series had tie in story books from Ladybird Books, and a quintet of VHS tapes from Disney Videos between 1997 and 2001.