Pipkins

Pipkins (originally Inigo Pipkin) was a British children's TV programme. Hartley Hare, Pig, Topov and the gang were the stars of ATV's pre-school series which ran from January 1973 to 29 December 1981.

Pipkins was one of the first children's programmes on British TV where the characters had regional accents (Pig had a Black Country accent while Topov the monkey was a Cockney and Octavia the ostrich had a French accent).

For a period of time the programme was called (and introduced as) Pipkins Ball. This was in relation to the characters 'having a ball' (good time) but was later dropped.

Origins

In 1972, the ITV network expanded its daytime broadcasting hours and the Independent Broadcasting Authority commissioned four of the main ITV companies to each provide a series of interest to pre-schoolers, as an alternative to the successful US import Sesame Street. From this commission Thames Television came up with Rainbow, Yorkshire with Mister Trimble, Granada with Hickory House, while ATV’s contribution would be Inigo Pipkin.