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Murun Buchstansangur

SEMI-ANIMATED WOULD-BE philosophical musings on life of a green round thing living under a sink and his various mates. By virtue of third-person narration and glib style, a kind of downbeat ROOBARB. Early Channel Four scheduled filler, still showing in Canada. Possibly. Jaunty East End boozer piano theme.

9 Comments

9 Comments

  1. Lee James Turnock

    May 1, 2010 at 12:31 pm

    I imagine this was popular amongst people who liked the Smiths.

  2. Victor

    May 9, 2010 at 5:18 am

    I think you do this fine show a disservice. I’ve only seen 3 episodes and am captivated – it’s surreal, funny and very British in how it teeters quietly between whimsy and despair. Then again, I also like The Smiths, so maybe I’m not representative.

  3. Lee James Turnock

    May 26, 2010 at 3:23 pm

    Bear in mind I was only about nine when I first saw it, it just didn’t seem like a “proper” cartoon to me.

  4. David Pascoe

    May 27, 2010 at 12:28 am

    I agree, Lee. It should be remembered that the early years of Channel 4 were a bewildering, scary, strange and occasionally exhilirating period for children who turned over to it because there was nothing worth watching on the other channels. Murun wasn’t quite as head-scratchingly impenatrable as Pob or Max Headroom, but it was damn close!

  5. Mr Grimsdale

    May 27, 2010 at 7:52 am

    It should be remembered that the early years of Channel 4 were a bewildering, scary, strange and occasionally exhilirating period for children

    And it should also be remembered that the early years of Channel 4 included the bewildering, scary, strange and ……… which was “Minipops”

    You could have a very long discussion about who that was aimed at.

  6. gman

    May 31, 2010 at 12:07 am

    I love any cartoon which can have the lead character moaning about having to spend an evening with “a boring old Rossiter”, and can end with the line, “After dinner, Murun Buchstansangur went home, and vomited”.

  7. graysonscolumn

    August 25, 2015 at 5:20 pm

    The work of the very gifted Timothy Forder, also responsible for the animated adaptation of the W Heath Robinson book Bill the Minder and the 1990 reboot of Frank Muir’s What-a-Mess, both shown on Children’s ITV if memory serves.

    He also wrote and directed the 1993 film version of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, the fourth such version committed to film, though I must admit I’ve never seen that.

  8. crywank

    October 21, 2015 at 3:48 pm

    I stumbled across this page researching Timothy Forder in the hopes of contacting him. I get a bit obsessive with my animation research and couldn’t believe that ‘Bill The Minder’ is so unknown! It should be seen as a classic, fantastic series. I found Murun Buchstansangur shortly afterwards and was captivated. I’d love to see DVD releases of them both. It’s a shame such a great British animator didn’t seem to get the credit they deserved. It seems like their career didn’t do so well after What-a-Mess. Directing cheaply made straight-to-video disney knockoffs, then some very poorly received live action films. It’s a shame, two of the best British animated shows I’ve seen! Glad to see someone else has looked into Forder Graysoncolumn.

  9. Joanne Gray

    February 20, 2017 at 7:25 pm

    Winner of the 1983 Dafta (sic) Award for “Impossible Programme Title To Announce Either Sober Or Blind Drunk”.

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