Johnson and Friends (stylised as Johnson & Friends) was an Australian children's television program broadcast on the ABC from 3 September 1990 to 30 October 1995. It was produced by Film Australia and lasted for four seasons. In the UK it was shown in 1993 on TCC, CBBC, and then on UK Living's Tiny Living strand for under-fives. It was later aired in the United States with dubbed American voices as a part of The Fox Cubhouse, an educational children's anthology series on Fox Kids, between 1994 and early 1996. The series was last repeated on ABC1, with this run ending on the 19th March 2002.
Maps, Directions, and Place Reviews
Plot
Johnson and his friends are toys that belong to a boy named Michael, unseen except for asleep in his bed. They reside in his bedroom, but do not move or show any signs of life until he has left the room or fallen asleep. Each episode involves a story about the toys and it will usually have an educational message to convey to the viewer.
Hot Pink Bedroom Video
Themes
The series is aimed at children less than five years old, and plays upon their fascination with the notion that toys come to life while they are gone. However, the stories often have a deeper message, and sometimes they are very poignant.
Characters
- Johnson: The leader of the toys. A furry pink elephant who loves reading. Johnson is the wisest and oldest of the group, despite a shortcoming of not been able to count past one, and a tendency towards impatience sometimes.
- McDuff: A blue and yellow concertina who loves having fun. Although she is a little silly, McDuff is a kind and loyal friend, especially towards the misunderstood Diesel.
- Diesel: A red toy truck with a yellow and black hat that spends most of his time going "bruuum, bruuum" around the floor. He speaks with a very pronounced Australian accent. Although brusque, he means well and is obviously fond of his friends.
- Alfred: A green hot water bottle, which is technically not a toy. He is a real fusspot and lives in the dark, dank area of the bedroom that is under the bed. He is neurotic and anxious and complains constantly. His face wears an aggrieved expression, but it is Alfred that supplies a lot of the humour. He also owns an old "banana skin blanket" which he is very protective of. Although grumpy and sometimes selfish, Alfred is generally good natured and helps Johnson out on his endeavours.
- Squeaky: A black and red robot. She guards the bedroom while Michael is asleep and loves singing to herself. She is childlike and believes that the vacuum cleaner is her mother. She does not appear in every episode.
- Victoria: A slow-moving orange and purple dinosaur that actually belongs to Michael's elder sister, Melissa; Victoria will often appear at the door of Michael's bedroom with some bad news she has just heard.
- Alphonse: Alfred's long lost friend from the hot water bottle factory, he mentions that he and Alfred are both very musically talented and were once known as "The Hot Water Rockers".
- Albert: Another hot water bottle acquaintance of Alfred's, Albert is known for his temper, and is even less tolerable than Alfred!
- Alfred's Friends: Aside from Alphonse and Albert, Alfred is shown to have many hot water bottle friends, whom he has invited to the bedroom at least once.
- Michael: The boy who owns the toys, he is only seen while asleep, but is frequently mentioned throughout the series.
- Melissa: Michael's sister who is the owner of Victoria. She is never seen on screen, only mentioned.
- Michael's Mum and Dad: Michael's parents are occasionally mentioned throughout the series, however, they never appear physically.
- Michael's Aunt and Uncle: Michael's Aunt and Uncle are mentioned very briefly in one of the episodes.
- Baby: Michael's infant cousin made a non-physical appearance in one of the episodes.
Cast
The program was narrated by Paul Bertram. The US dub was narrated by Amy Hartman.
Episodes
International broadcast
Johnson and Friends was broadcast in over 50 territories. These include India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Japan, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, South America, Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Cyprus, Turkey, France, Germany, Norway, Finland, The Netherlands, Ireland, Iceland, Canada, New Zealand, Israel, Estonia, The Middle East, Scandinavia, the UK, and the USA, among many other areas. In addition, several non-English speaking countries showed the original Australian version as well their own localised dub.
The series was shown on CBBC in the UK from 1991-1999, as well as The Children's Channel and Tiny Living, TVOKids and Knowledge Network in Canada, Fox Kids in the USA, and Fuji TV in Japan. The series was critically acclaimed in Japan and spawned an extensive range of merchandise, including plush toys, jigsaw puzzles and more. A small amount of merchandise was also released in the US.
American version
In 1994, executive producer Ron Saunders approached Jay Rayvid, a producer at WQED, Pittsburgh's local PBS station (known for producing Mister Rogers' Neighborhood) to see if the station was interested in helping to get Johnson and Friends on television in the United States. Jay agreed, but was unable to find a market for the series as a standalone program. By this point, 52 episodes (the first three series) had been produced and were available to WQED for distribution. FOX Kids were looking to start a preschool series around the same time and thus The Fox Cubhouse was created.
WQED and FOX teamed up and implemented Johnson and Friends as a segment in Tuesday and Thursday episodes of the 'Cubhouse'. In addition, The Fox Cubhouse itself was shot at WQED. However, the FOX network executives believed that the Australian accents in Johnson and Friends would confuse American viewers, so the series was dubbed over by local Pittsburgh actors.
It was decided that Peter Browne would be retained as Alfred's voice actor, but due to master recording issues, all of his dialogue had to be rerecorded. Several additional songs and music tracks were written by Chris Neal and his son Braedy, who had previously composed the score and songs for the original version of Johnson and Friends, as FOX felt that some of the earlier episodes were "too quiet" and didn't fit the atmosphere they wanted for the series. Instrumental versions of preexisting Johnson songs were also used. As the series was broadcast as a segment rather than a standalone program, the credits were featured at the end of the Cubhouse itself and each Johnson episode ended with the final chorus of 'Toys, Toys, Wonderful Toys' from the Johnson album, re-recorded by the US cast. Minor cuts were also occasionally made along with adjustments to John Patterson's scripts, to remove Australian terminology and slang. Series director Ian Munro maintained a level of creative control over the American version of the program and was involved with voice direction.
The Fox Cubhouse became a short-lived success, and FOX commissioned an additional season of 26 episodes of Johnson and Friends for the Cubhouse's second season. These episodes were also shown in Australia, dubbed by the original voice cast and marketed as the fourth series of the program. David Flick, who had provided the American voice of Diesel was replaced by Doug Scroope, Diesel's original voice, and several episodes of the first season of Cubhouse were also revised with Doug Scroope as Diesel. While previous Cubhouse episodes featured two episodes of Johnson, each, the second season was quite different, and one episode was sometimes replaced with an episode of Budgie the Little Helicopter or Magic Adventures of Mumfie, due to the fact that these programs also had a running time of ten minutes. Some episodes, however, still featured two Johnson episodes. Shortly after the broadcast of these episodes, The Fox Cubhouse was taken off the air, and the American localisation hasn't seen the light of day since. It is believed that the master tapes of the US version were wiped, however, several master copies are known to exist.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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