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Little Blue

ESOTERIC, I.E. IFFY “animal living with human family” ITV situationism starring a baby elephant. Cartoon format but, crucially, not stop-frame, presumably for budgetary reasons. Instead, shot in a money-saving storyboarded style that was also popularised by ISSI NOHO, although some dynamism was afforded by the rostrum camera tracking across the frame at particularly dramatic moments. Otherwise, we’re talking a sequence of static hand-drawn tableaux, folks. So what was the premise? Titular pachyderm “bit his mother’s fountain pen and broke it in two” while having a bath. “The ink it squirted in the water, wow, and his mother’s got a blue boy now.” Evidently it wasn’t water-solvent ink as the elephant was then lumbered with blue skin for the rest of the series, and, presumably the rest of his life.

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  1. Swellephant

    March 21, 2010 at 7:41 pm

    It wasn’t narrated by Willie Rushton, it was told in the fruity tones of John Kidd, who I think sang the jolly but strangely menacing theme tune too.

    As a child I used to wonder how powerful that blue ink must have been, what on earth was it made from? Unless Little Blue was like one of those people who have spider webs tattooed on their faces and went for the full body version?

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