Jellabies (also known as Jellikins or The Jellies) is a British children's animated television series that first aired on the UK television network (GMTV). from 18 May 1998 until 2001. It was also shown in Germany, (Super RTL), U.S. (Fox Family Channel, now Freeform), The Netherlands (Kindernet), France (TF! Jeunesse), and Australia ABC Kids The target audience is for children ages two to six.

It was one of the first fully CGI-animated series in the world.

Format

The program was conceived and developed in Worcestershire, UK by Jonny Lewis, a 3d artist/animator and Optical Image Ltd, a small TV/video editing house, using CGI animation. The show was narrated by Rik Mayall.^[1] The Jellabies are jelly-made children that live in the Jolly Jelly World, which is the magical land at the end of the rainbow, where their first job is to make rainbows. (for which they have a machine called the Jelliscope, a computer/teleporter/rainbow generator that is constantly monitoring weather conditions around the world) Although each Jellaby has its own vehicle to drive around in, their main use of travelling long distances around Jelly Land is on the "Jelly Train", a train that only consists of a cab (without any actual locomotive) and one passenger car. The show premiered in 1998 and ended in 2003.

Jellabies are also known as Jellikins in certain parts of the world, including the United Kingdom. This version is exactly the same as the Jellabies in every way, except the characters' heads were changed to look like gummy bears. However, Duffy the dragon remained the same. This version aired on GMTV in the United Kingdom until 2004.

History

Jonny Lewis designed and created the characters and developed the pilot episode with his brother Mikel Lewis, using 3D Studio Max software. It was loosely based on Jelly Babies candies. In the early months, before funding, Jonny Lewis lived in a dusty basement in Malvern so he could afford to develop the show on his home PC. The pilot led to the series being commissioned by GMTV and then in many other countries around the world. It was the first British fully 3D computer-animated series to make it on to television.

Optical Image sealed sponsorship from Basset's. Other animators who made significant input were Meena Kamurai Pai, Andrew Lindsay, Richard Smart, Andy Day, Ian Friend, Harjit Birdi, making each episode with only five days to complete each one in order to meet the schedule.

Music written and composed by Dave Lowe and Vo Fletcher.

Characters and voice cast

Each of the six Jellabies represent the colours of the rainbow.

Supporting

• Duffy: The only non-Jellaby character in the entire show, is a green dragon who lives in the Jelly Caves.

Episodes

Theme song

The theme song Wobbly World Theme written by David Lowe and Vo Fletcher was performed by Rik Mayall (who is also the narrator of the show) and Sherrie Ashton with children from The Wyche C.E. Primary School, Malvern.^[9]

CD release

In 1999, a CD was released titled Jellikins: Songs from the TV series which featured songs performed by Mayall.

Ride(s)

Since 2000, there has been a Jellikins roller coaster at British theme park, Fantasy Island. Amutec had rights to make a Jellikins coin-operated ride featuring Bouncey in his bumper car from 2001 up until a currently unknown year/date.

International Broadcast

References