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THAT WOBBLY felt-tip animation technique patented by Godfrey and co. was called “boiling”, and gave a distinctive look to NOAH AND NELLY and the Briers-narrated adventures of this acid-green nasal dog, forever trying to better himself to constant derision of garden birds, worms and hot pink next-door cat, Custard. Famous episodes involved Norse gods getting Roobarb to shut up, and abortive attempt at becoming a bird revealing one fatal flaw – birds had beaks, and Roobarb had a spike. And a beak is a beak, and a spike is a spike. Created by one Grange Calverley. Scuzzy guitar theme predated punk by at least a year.
THX 1139
June 23, 2019 at 11:32 pm
The theme tune was brilliant, but so was the whole soundtrack, especially the jazzy double bass pieces. Also brilliant: the sound of the birds’ hysterical laughter.
richardpd
June 24, 2019 at 1:47 pm
Great fun, & timeless enough to still be repeated well into the 1990s, & managed to get a short lived revival on Channel 5.
Supposedly it took until the mid 1980s to make a profit, as Grange Calverley, Bob Godfrey & co. had to borrow money to get it made.
Tom Ronson
March 31, 2022 at 3:22 am
I was weirdly afraid of Roobarb when I was young. Not the character, the whole thing. The wobbly, unpolished, febrile animation; the birds’ hysterical laughter; the fact that the dog was lime green and the cat hot pink; the insane theme music and the jazzy background score; Richard Briers’ feverish narration. It felt like the work of genuinely demented people, and was far too chaotic and disorganised for my rigid little four-year-old mind. As an intrinsically dull child, I had neither use nor desire for aggressively anarchic entertainment, and I much preferred Henry’s Cat, which was more whimsical and gently surreal (and had loads of in-jokes for animation nerds).