TV Cream

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Amazing Adventures of Morph, The

THEY REALLY needn’t have bothered. As a training sop for junior animators and a stopgap in VISION ON between Tone’s New York skyline murals done with paint rollers with bits cut out, the antics of this shape-shifting blob of plasticine bloke thing were OKish. Laden with a story and a can’t-be-arsed narration from the boy Hart, it was a thunderously so-so entry in the 5.35 canon. Those supporting characters in full: laid-back “cool dude” Chas, amiable lummox Gillespie, old bloke with beard Grandmorph, a woman called Delilah who looked just like Morph but with hair and specs, and a girl made out of tin foil, called Foily, imaginatively. Oh, and there was a scrubbing brush masquerading as a dog, some kind of alien thing, and loads of little blobs of plasticine. Er. Lengthy BLUE PETER features on How They Did The Voice (they speeded up the tape!) did little to galvanise interest. Nasty miaowing-synth theme tune, too.

9 Comments

9 Comments

  1. David Smith

    June 11, 2009 at 12:59 am

    The woman whose name you’ve forgotten who looked like Morph with hair and specs was the only-slightly-less-bemusingly-named-as-Gillespie “Delilah”.

  2. TV Cream

    June 11, 2009 at 10:57 pm

    Cheers David. Entry updated!

  3. David Smith

    June 29, 2009 at 12:16 am

    Actually I think the tin foil girl was called “Folly”, though “Foily” would be more appropriate now you mention it…maybe the result of a typo somewhere along the line at Aardman? (I really remember far too much about this programme don’t I?)

  4. Lee James Turnock

    April 30, 2010 at 5:04 pm

    I think there was a version of the theme tune with actual LYRICS, something along the lines of “Wake up Morph, are you ready for another day?”…that’s all I can remember, but some synth-duo comprised of a pair of smart-arsed looking new-romantic types sang it on Blue Peter…to quote the Drive By abuser, fair play to ’em, I wouldn’t have the fucking nerve!

  5. Lee James Turnock

    May 18, 2012 at 1:58 pm

    Having found an episode on an ancient and crackly Ferguson VHS tape, I can now confirm that the little blobs of plasticine were imaginatively called ‘the very small creatures’. You can all rest easy now.

  6. THX 1139

    July 12, 2017 at 6:59 pm

    I see Gillespie has been playing at Wimbledon again. Roger Federer beat him today.

  7. Richard16378

    July 12, 2017 at 8:52 pm

    I remember Morph managed to clone himself in one episode & Gillespie eventually sorted things out by squishing the 2 together back into 1 Morph, which amused my & my brother.

  8. Droogie

    July 13, 2017 at 2:09 pm

    Regarding the previous poster who remembers a different Morph theme that had lyrics instead of the nasty miaowing synth number, they are correct and it was sung by old jazzer Georgie Fame of Yeh Yeh fame. He sang it live on Blue Peter after they showed the making of Morph doc.

  9. Tom Ronson

    September 30, 2020 at 8:16 pm

    The episode where Delilah’s lost her glasses and has got a right gob on always made me laugh as a child, if only because she finds them in the somewhat unlikely hiding place of Grandmorph’s beard – which is then accidentally snipped off by Gillespie, causing Grandmorph to throw a tantrum and give Gillespie a black eye. There’s another episode where Morph takes pity on one of the Very Small Creatures and teaches him how to meta-Morph-asise (geddit?) into a venomous snake, and one where Grandmorph digs out some old home movies from the days when he used to be on the stage – cue a claymation Charlie Chaplin tribute. In short, it was all harmless fun and fondly remembered by those of us who are in love with life.

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