TV Cream

TV: T is for...

Tales of the Riverbank

JOHNNY MORRIS was on hand with his repertoire of two animal voices for this highly suspect real animal story. Film of Hammy the Hamster, a rat, possibly a mouse (we couldn’t tell) had various unlikely adventures. For a river-dwelling hamster, Hammy was well sorted – he had a jeep, a speedboat, and even a drumkit (top cruelty guaranteed with drumsticks glued on to its little paws) plus trusty retainers Roderick the Rat and Hammy the Hamster. In supporting parts was Tarantinoesque posse Mrs Duck, Mrs Hen, Mr Weasel, Mr Guinea Pig, and Mr Squirrel. Numerous revivals down the years, all involving small animals nailed to plastic toy vehicles.

2 Comments

2 Comments

  1. THX 1139

    April 29, 2021 at 2:43 pm

    It’s amazing what some people will do for a sunflower seed. No, not Johnny Morris. Think this was… Canadian? And revoiced by the great man over here. When Channel 5 started, they showed one of the revivals which I stupidly tried to watch thinking it was the original, but you could tell it was a pale facsimile.

  2. Richardpd

    April 29, 2021 at 10:40 pm

    I think it was thought up by a Canadian living on the Isle of Wight.

    Some clever tricks were used to get the animals to act, normally talking was footage of them eating slowed down.

    It was quite widely exported as it was easy to dub over, & according to one book on children’s TV was shown in more countries than any other before the likes of Baywatch came along.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

To Top