Concept and creative process
Opening titles for a children’s puppet show about Andy Pandy and his adventures with Teddy and Looby Loo in a world full of songs and games. ‘Andy Pandy’ first appeared on BBC television live in 1950 in a string puppet series of 26 episodes shown once weekly. It was quickly realised that if filmed, the performances could be repeated and so the original series was filmed and ran until 1970, when a new series in colour was commissioned. ‘Andy Pandy’ was the brainchild of Freda Lingstrom, Assistant Head of BBC Schools Broadcasting, and her friend Maria Bird, with whom the scripts, characters and settings were devised. Maria Bird also wrote and played the music, narrated the stories and sang the songs for the early live shows. They set up a company, Westerham Films, which successfully produced a range of programmes for the very young in the ‘Watch with Mother’ strand. The titles for ‘Andy Pandy’ in the colour series were simply rhythmic jump-cut substitutions of the flower pictures for letters spelling out the name. Previously, in the monochrome era, these titles had appeared on three dimensional blocks, with the letters of the name revolving into shot. In 2002 ‘Andy Pandy’ was revived as a stop-frame animation series.