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Bungo Womble, in the UK TV series |
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Author | Elisabeth Beresford |
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Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre | Children's literature |
Publisher | Bloomsbury |
Published | 1968 |
Media type | Print (hardcover and paperback) Audiobook |
The Wombles are fictional pointy-nosed, furry creatures that live in burrows, where they aim to help the environment by collecting and recycling rubbish in creative ways. Wombles were created by author Elisabeth Beresford, and originally appeared in a series of children's novels from 1968.[1] Although Wombles supposedly live in every country in the world, Beresford's stories are concerned with the lives of the inhabitants of the burrow on Wimbledon Common in London, England.
The characters became nationally famous in the UK in the mid 1970s as a result of a very popular BBC children's television show using stop motion animation. A number of spin-off novelty songs also became major hits in the British music charts. The Wombles (band) was the brainchild of British music writer and composer, Mike Batt.
The Womble motto is "Make Good Use of Bad Rubbish." This green message was a reflection of the growing ecology movement of the 1970s.[2]
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Elisabeth Beresford was a freelance ghost writer and children's book author. She was born in Paris and travelled the world with her BBC sports commentator husband Max Robertson.[3]
One Christmas, Elisabeth Beresford took her young children for a Boxing Day walk on Wimbledon Common, where one referred to it as "Wombledon Common." On getting home, Elisabeth Beresford wrote down the idea and started developing the characters and storylines.[4]
Beresford developed the characters around members of her family, and named them after places the family had associations with:[5][6]
Later character names for the film Wombling Free and second Wombles TV series developed in the same manner:
In the first book, Bungo was the youngest and least experienced of the team, and the story is mostly viewed through his eyes. Afterwards Wellington (who was not introduced until the second book) took over the role of "new boy". Alderney and Adelaide appeared in the earlier books but were not included in the original 1970s TV series. Alderney was re-introduced in the later TV shows produced in the 1990s (the Channel Island of Alderney was actually Elisabeth Beresford's home at the time), along with Stepney (who appeared in none of the earlier versions).
Though it is stated that Wombles live all around the world, the collection upon which Beresford's collection of stories, as well as the television series and the music, are based, is the group living in Wimbledon Common in London, England. Below a certain age, all Wombles are nameless. Upon coming of age, a Womble chooses his name by looking through Great Uncle Bulgaria's large atlas until they find a name that suits them. Some, like Bungo, "merely shut their eyes tight and point and hope for the best."[7] They then leave Miss Adelaide's "Womblegarten" and join in the communal work of the burrow, which is mostly clearing up and recycling human refuse. The life expectancy of a Womble is over 200 years, with some reaching 300 (which would make them the longest-lived of all animal species).
Wombles are vegetarians (herbivores more precisely) and are very fond of mushrooms. They eat a variety of plants, fungi, and tree products that Human Beings cannot, or will not, eat. So daisy buns, acorn juice, fir-cone soufflé, elm bark casserole and grassbread sandwiches are part of the Womble menu - augmented by any food left behind on the Common by Human Beings.
Wombles are very careful to keep their existence secret from Human Beings - at least in the books and TV series. In the movie Wombling Free this is reversed as the Wombles seek to get Human Beings to listen to their "make good use of bad rubbish" pleas. Otherwise secrecy is the rule, though there have been a few exceptions, such as Mr. Smith, a lonely senior citizen who is invited inside the Wombles burrow on Christmas Eve.[8] They generally have a low opinion of other animals, though kind to them. They especially have a poor opinion of Human Beings, with the exception of royalty, especially the Queen. They dislike lies and lying, though on occasion they are known to stretch the truth or omit important details.
There are other species and burrows of Wombles discovered throughout the series of books. The Loch Ness monster is revealed to be a clan of water Wombles and the yeti of the Himalayas are revealed to be giant snow-white Wombles. Wombles have a sixth sense which allows them to sense green spaces and wildlife, first mentioned in the Wandering Wombles, but developed to a keen long range telepathic sense by Dalai Gartok Womble in The Wombles Go Round The World. Wombles also apparently have retractable claws like cats, although they rarely use them.
In the original editions of the books the Wombles are pictured as bear-like and between 4 and 5 feet (about 1.5 metres) in height. Their size and appearance changed with the TV series, where they are portrayed as about knee high with pointy snouts, much like a raccoon's (although raccoons are not native to Britain). In the book and movie Wombling Free they are described as "short, fat, and furry", roughly between three or four feet (about 1 metre) in height.
There were five novels:
All of these were out of print for many years, but through 2010 and 2011 they were re-issued by Bloomsbury with all-new illustrations. The last two books are less well known than the original three, perhaps because they appeared after the successful television series began. In The Wandering Wombles, the setting moved from Wimbledon Common to Hyde Park in central London. However The Wombles to the Rescue saw them return to Wimbledon Common.
Four of the books were illustrated by Margaret Gordon. The Wombles at Work (1973) was illustrated by Barry Leith. The appearance of the Wombles in the books followed the design of the Ivor Wood TV puppets, with the exception of The Wombles (1968) which preceded the TV series and depicted the Wombles as teddy bear-like creatures.
Wombles appearing in the books included:
Additional Wombles included:
Beresford also wrote a collection of short stories entitled The Invisible Womble and Other Stories (1973), in which the original Wimbledon Common setting was restored. Although based on episodes from the TV series, these stories occasionally refer to events in the novels.
In addition to these books, a great many annuals, picture-books and children's early readers have been published over the years, some of which were also written by Elisabeth Beresford.[9]
A stop motion animated series was made between 1973 and 1975.[10] Further animated episodes were made in 1998-1999.[1]
Songwriter and producer Mike Batt wrote the series' theme tune, and later went on to perform and produce a number of highly successful novelty singles as The Wombles in the 1970s.[1]
A feature-length live-action movie Wombling Free was released in 1977, starring The Wombles, David Tomlinson, Frances de la Tour and introducing Bonnie Langford. A soundtrack album was released in 1978. A region 2 DVD of the film was released by Network DVD in 2006, containing the film in its theatrical aspect ratio, the original theatrical trailer, and archive interviews with Bonnie Langford, David Tomlinson and writer/director Lionel Jeffries.[11]
The Wombles starred in a number of British comics including Teddy Bear (1973), Jack and Jill (1973–81), a number of holiday specials, and as the interval act at the Eurovision Song Contest 1974.
The Wombles were exported to American audiences in the late 1970s when they made occasional appearances on CBS' Captain Kangaroo.
The Wombles are popular in the MUD world, particularly on Discworld MUD.[12]
In 2009 The Wombles featured in "The Official BBC Children in Need Medley" which reached No.1 in the UK singles charts.
In 2011 The Wombles performed at Glastonbury.[13]
Due to the Wombles' association with the area, some local sporting teams representing Wimbledon are sometimes affectionately dubbed "the Wombles". These teams include the Ladies side of Wimbledon RFC[14] (whose mascot is Alderney), Wimbledon Volleyball Club and the Wombles Netball Club.[15]
From 2000 to June 2003, Wimbledon F.C. used a Womble named "Wandle" as a club mascot after the local River Wandle. However, in light of the controversy over the moving of the club to Milton Keynes, the licence to use the character was not renewed.[16] In 2006 the club's spiritual successor AFC Wimbledon agreed a licensing deal, and launched its own Womble mascot. After a naming competition in which the final name was chosen by Elisabeth Beresford herself, the club announced that the new Womble would be known as "Haydon," after Haydons Road, the nearest railway station to Wimbledon's original home ground, Plough Lane.
Elisabeth Beresford also gave permission for a team of Wombles to run the London Marathon every year raising money for Jesuit Missions UK.[17]
In a special episode of "A Question of Sport" that was themed around the Wimbledon tennis championships, Sue Barker mentioned having asked then team captains Ally McCoist and John Parrott to name their Wimbledon heroes. The replies were "Vinnie Jones" and "Uncle Bulgaria"!
Barrington Womble MBE (played by John Halsey) is the drummer of the fictional band The Rutles. A spoof of The Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.
Various allusions and puns are made in reference to the Wombles in the Warhammer 40,000 book series Ciaphas Cain by author Sandy Mitchell, being referenced in the form of the "Reclaimers" chapter of the Space Marines.
The 2005 film Breakfast on Pluto features the Wombles.
In the Bottom episode "'s Out", the main characters Eddie and Richie camp out on Wimbledon common and try hunting Wombles (Eddie mistakes a hedgehog for a womble) to get a meal. They fail.
The British comedy The Vicar of Dibley references the Wombles repeatedly. According to Dawn French's character Geraldine Granger: "I once tried to go on Mastermind, but they didn't like my special subject. Apparently there just aren't enough questions about the Wombles."
The Wombles are vitriolically parodied in The Borrible Trilogy by Michael de Larrabeiti as the Rumbles, the upper-class, rodent-like enemies of the working-class scavenger main characters.
The term "womble" is sometimes used in British slang to describe a person who is well-meaning but absent-minded or ineffectual. For example, Jeremy Clarkson often refers to Highways Agency Traffic Officers, who exasperate him as a matter of principle, as "traffic wombles" on Top Gear.
In the fifth season of The Ricky Gervais Show, Stephen Merchant compared Ricky Gervais to a Womble while discussing Ricky's experiences as an unemployed artist in the 1980s.
During the London Riots of 2011 people started to use the Twitter Hashtag #riotwombles to gather people over social media to help clean up the streets affected by the riots.[18]
On 19 December 2011, the Wombles were featured on an episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
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The Wombles is a stop motion animated British television series made in 1973–1975. The Wombles are creatures that live underground, collecting and recycling human rubbish.
After the first Wombles book, published in 1968, was featured on the BBC1 children's television programme Jackanory, the BBC commissioned producer FilmFair to create a television series of the books. The series was produced by Graham Clutterbuck and directed by Ivor Wood using stop-motion. The characters were all voiced by actor Bernard Cribbins. Sets and model making were by Barry Leith. Two series of 30, five-minute episodes were produced, with the first series airing in 1973, animated by Ivor Wood, and the second in 1975, animated by Barry Leith. In all, 60 episodes were produced.
The original television series was regularly screened for many years. After FilmFair was acquired by the Canadian company Cinar Films in 1996, a new series of episodes was created, with three new Womble characters. In the UK, the series was purchased by ITV and was screened on their CITV brand.
The Wombles is a second animated series for children based on the characters created by Elisabeth Beresford transmitted in 1997 and 1998. The Wombles had remained popular with children into the 1980s. After FilmFair was acquired by the Canadian company Cinar Films in 1996, a new series of episodes was made, with three new Womble characters. In the UK, the series was purchased by ITV.
In late August 2013 it was announced that the Wombles would return with a new television series. Richard Desmond snapped up the rights to the new TV series which will consist of 26 episodes each 11 minutes in length. The new series will be made using computer-generated imagery (CGI) and is due to air in 2015 on Channel 5.
The Wombles are a British novelty pop group, featuring musicians dressed as the characters from children's TV show The Wombles, which in turn was based on the children's book series by Elisabeth Beresford. Songwriter and record producer, Mike Batt, wrote the series' theme tune, and went on to perform and produce a number of successful albums and singles as 'The Wombles'. British Hit Singles & Albums jokingly referred to them as the "furriest (and possibly the tidiest) act... are natives of Wimbledon Common, London". In 2011, the band played at The Glastonbury Festival.
Filmfair acquired the television rights to The Wombles and commissioned Batt to write the theme song. He waived the flat fee for writing a single song, and secured the character rights for musical production to write songs under the name 'The Wombles'. To help him get into character, Batt's mother made him a Womble suit, which he wore for a week prior to writing the first songs.
The band released several albums and singles. All four studio albums went gold and four of the singles reached the Top 10 in the UK Singles Chart. The Wombles were the most successful act of 1974, with albums in the UK charts for more weeks than any other act.
The WOMBLES (White Overalls Movement Building Libertarian Effective Struggles) are a loosely aligned anarchist and anti-capitalist group based in London. They gained prominence in the early 2000s for wearing white overalls with padding and helmets at protests, mimicking the Italian group Tute Bianche.
The group was founded by some of those who came together as the September26Collective to organise transport to Prague for actions to disrupt the meeting of the World Bank and IMF, on their return. Since then they have participated, and helped organise, various protests, including the Halloween 2002 protest, and May Day 2001, Thessaloniki, €uroMayDay and Gleneagles. They claim to operate in a "non-hierarchical but self-disciplined way".
"On Mayday 2000 the cops gave [the protesters] a good kicking", their website says. In response to this, the group was started to provide "self-protection from the depredations of the constabulary" (the police).
They have since abandoned their trademark white overalls because they found it made them too visible and open to attack, instead favouring clothing that enables them to be anonymous.
I've tried and tried to run and hide
To find a life that's new
But wherever I go I always know
I can't escape from you
A jug of wine to numb my mind
But what good does it do?
The jug runs dry and still I cry
I can't escape from you
These wasted years are souvenirs
Of love I thought was true
Your memory is chained to me
I can't escape from you
There is no end, I can't pretend
That dreams will soon come true
A slave too long to a heart of stone
I can't escape from you