Timbuctoo (1998)
First episode title: Neigh Finds a New Home
How familiar with the show am I?: I hadn't heard of it before.
From Roger Hargreaves, creator of Mr. Men and Little Miss, comes a show in a very similar style, except the characters are animals. They're only slightly more animal-shaped than the Mr. Men are human-shaped. And this "Timbuctoo" is an island, unlike the real Timbuktu in Mali.
Quite a short episode we're looking at this time, so I'll try not to zoom through it too quickly. We start off with a narrator (Ronnie Corbett, who actually plays all the characters) telling us that a horse called Neigh lives in the corner of a field. This is portrayed as a bunch of home items like a bed, a chair, a rug, and a bath simply being out in the open air, and a raincloud is raining just specifically over that spot and nowhere else. It looks to me like Neigh has picked the worst part of the field to live in! And right now, he's in the shower.
Neigh: Never take a shower in a thunderstorm. All the rain gets in!
He seems cheerful enough when he says that, but then he has to empty the water out of all his furniture (while it's still raining!), and looks sadder and sadder. Sitting on his soggy chair, which looks to have a pattern of horseshoes on it, he complains about how soaked he is.
A chicken called Cluck approaches. She carries a pink umbrella and her feet look kind of like high heels, but I did have to check to make sure this character was meant to be female, since, as I said, it's Ronnie Corbett's voice coming out of everyone.
Cluck asks Neigh what's wrong and he explains about his rain problem, so Cluck says Neigh needs to find a new place to live, and they go off together - just as the rain stops!
The first person they meet on their travels is a dog called Woof. Even given the stylised shapes of these characters, Woof stands out as especially weird-looking, with his arms being so far back from his legs that he always looks like he's sitting down.
Cluck asks Woof where dogs live, needlessly poking him in the nose as she does so. Have a sense of personal space, Cluck! Woof, in his very posh voice, says they live in kennels, and Cluck pushes past him (there was space, Cluck!) to go and quickly build a kennel. Neigh gets in it and... it's not very good. It's poorly-built with nails sticking out in random places, and it's so small that Neigh's legs aren't inside it and his hat is on the roof!
Cluck: So, what do you think, Neigh?
Neigh: Very uncomfortable. Is what I think. Cluck.
As they walk along to find another option, Cluck makes little clucking noises as she walks, which is cute. A character called Worm (breaking the pattern, but for good reason) comes out of a hole and tells them that holes are good for living in. Cluck once again goes rushing off, in order to create a hole, while Neigh judges Worm's hole as being a bit too small for him.
Well, the hole that Cluck makes for Neigh isn't as small, but it's damp and muddy, and Neigh is once again uncomfortable. Worm actively laughs at Neigh's situation here - at least Cluck is only naively getting things wrong!
The next person they encounter is a bee called Buzz, who puts "zzz" on the end of every sentence he says, like "Hello Neighzzz".
He tells them he has just the place for Neigh to live, leading them to... well it's probably meant to be like the inside of a beehive but you could just as well mistake it for cheese, being orange and full of holes. Neigh's sitting on a holey chair and holding a holey cup that's leaking what's presumably honey, and has a book in his other hand titled "Honey Hive Shrunk the Kids". Teehee.
Neigh still isn't comfortable, so they move on once again. They meet a mouse called Squeak who lives in a mouse-hole, and he suggests Neigh could live next door to him. Cluck chainsaws a hole in the wall - where's she getting all these tools from? - and Neigh ends up stuffed in there, struggling to move! Squeak, like Worm, laughs at him. Neigh needs to get some better friends!
There's a funny little bit where the narrator, Neigh, and Cluck all talk about how desperate Neigh is, but then they spot a tree, where a blue bird named Chirp is chirping and flying around.
Cluck: A nest! What a brilliant idea!
She didn't even need prompting this time!
Cluck has now tied Neigh to a rope and is pulling on one end to lift him up into the tree - yet another position that looks like it would make Neigh uncomfortable. Neigh is complaining the whole way up, saying that he doesn't like heights, but then... he gets to the top, where he's somehow got a bed already, and he loves the view from up there!
Neigh is comfortable in this position, but Chirp, who is crammed in one corner of the treetop pressed against Neigh's feet, is not. And Neigh doesn't seem to care! Neigh was the one sympathetic character until now! There must be some unoccupied trees around! Get your own treetop!
And, at the top of the tree, there's no shelter! What was the problem you were trying to solve again, Neigh? What's going to happen when it rains?