Jellabies


Jellabies is an Australian-British children's animated television series that first aired on the British television network, from 18 May 1998 until 2001. It was also shown in Canada, Germany, U.S., The Netherlands, France, and Australia. The series' target audience is children aged two to six.
It was one of the first television series to be produced fully in CGI.

Format

The programme 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. 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. 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 and one passenger car. The show premiered in 1998 and ended in early 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 January 2004.

History

Jonny Lewis designed and created the characters and developed the pilot episode with his brother Mikel Lewis, using 3D Studio Max. 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.

Main

  • Narrator
  • Strum – Lives at the train station, is purple, and is the musical Jellaby who plays the saxophone.
  • Bouncey – Lives in a bumper car, and is yellow.
  • Denny – Lives in a boat on the Jelly Lake, and is blue.
  • Pepper – Lives in a treehouse, and is red.
  • Amber and Coral – Two Jellabies who are twin sisters and are orange and pink, respectively. Amber lives in a hot air balloon and Coral lives in a house made out of building blocks and other fun objects. They have a little light pink toddler little jelliebies sister name Zahra who is 1 year old and loves dancing ballet. Zahra doesn’t have her own house so she lives with both Amber and Coral and sometimes either Amber or Coral or their friends.

    Supporting

  • Duffy – The only non-Jellaby character in the series. He is a green dragon who lives in the Jelly Caves.

    Episodes

Season 1 (1998-99)

1. Caterpillar
2. Circus
3. Pepper's Den
4. Hide and Seek
5. Apple
6. Seeds
7. Burst Balloon
8. Snow
9. Music
10. Drum
11. Drumsticks
12. Waiting

Season 2 (1999)

1. Birthday
2. Echoes
3. Sky
4. Egg
5. Monster
6. Sheep

Season 3 (1999)

1. Train Trouble
2. Balloon
3. Jack in the Box
4. Lost Voice
5. Sneezes
6. Invisible
7. Runaway Train
8. Rescue
9. Seal
10. Super Jelly
11. Bridge
12. Race
13. Captain Jellybeard

Season 4 (1999)

1. Shadow
2. Sun
3. Jelly Day
4. Animals
5. Jelly Lake
6. Jellyphone

Season 5 (1999)

1. Shipwreck
2. Cave In!
3. Bouncy Ball
4. Camping
5. Tobbogan
6. Jelly Dance
7. Fancy Dress
8. Obstacles
9. Football
10. Sounds
11. Caves
12. House
13. Twins

Season 6 (1999)

1. Night
2. Bouncing
3. Butterfly
4. Parrot
5. Spring

Season 7 (1999-2000)

1. Baa!
3. Autumn
4. Nature
5. Zebra
6. Big
7. Magic
8. Where's Pepper?
9. Hot
10. Robot
11. Wheels
12. Chums

Season 8 (2000)

1. Rubbish
2. Silly Sax
3. Small
4. High
5. Tower
6. Footprints
7. Yuk

Season 9 (2000-2001)

1. Jelly Disco
2. Mountain
4. Jelly Christmas
5. Paint
6. Feelings Rhyme

Newscreen era (2001)

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Strum's Concert
Hats
Magic Seeds
Painting

Unconfirmed episodes

Fair
Coral's Pet
Jungle
Kangaroo

Theme song

The theme song Wobbly World Theme written by David Lowe and Vo Fletcher which featured an opening narration by Rik Mayall. The song adds with a Caribbean flavour.

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

North America