Art Attack

Did You Know?

• The theme music was inspired by the Kenny Loggins song Danger Zone from the 1986 film Top Gun.
• No DVD releases have been issued in the UK, except DVDs bundled with Art Attack books and DVDs which came free with newspapers.

History

Art Attack began as a segment within the children's show No. 73, created by Neil Buchanan and Tim Edmunds, who had first worked together at Southern Television in 1982. The segment was so well received that Nigel Pickard, then executive producer of children's programming at TVS, approved a pilot. That pilot was filmed in 1989 at an empty swimming pool in Gillingham, Kent, and the full series launched the following year. The show's theme music was composed by Mr Miller & Mr Porter, taking inspiration from the Kenny Loggins song Danger Zone, as suggested by Buchanan. After TVS lost its broadcasting licence, Buchanan and Edmunds purchased the rights to the programme and produced it through their own company, The Media Merchants. To get the series onto ITV, they worked with STV Studios, partly because Nigel Pickard had moved to Scottish Television. In 1993, former TVS employee Peter Urie founded Television Support Services, which managed and co-wrote all Media Merchants productions. For most of its original run, the show was recorded at The Maidstone Studios in Kent. In 1998, The Media Merchants struck a deal with Disney's Buena Vista Productions to create 104 episodes for Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. These versions were shot at Maidstone on a smaller set, using mostly stock footage from the UK series. Local hosts presented the artwork between steps, while footage of Buchanan's hands doing the actual crafting was kept, along with the Big Art Attacks and The Head, which were dubbed by local voice actors. The Disney agreement expanded in April 2000 with forty more episodes for Latin America and Brazil, and again in March 2002. In March 2000, The Britt Allcroft Company, later known as Gullane Entertainment, bought The Media Merchants for £14 million, marking the first time the series changed hands under corporate ownership.

Characters

The Head was a stone bust puppet modeled after Constantine the Great. Its job was to go over the steps for the previous art project, usually in a funny way. After that recap, it would often show off its own version of that same project, but it almost always messed it up, leaving itself frustrated or upset. Sometimes, though, a mistake in the instructions would accidentally produce a neat new effect, and The Head would feel proud. It also liked cracking jokes or making puns, especially after the Big Art Attacks. Different people played The Head over the years: Jim Sweeney in the first series, Andrew O'Connor in the second, and then Francis Wright voiced and operated the redesigned puppet for series three through five. For series six and seven, producer Tim Edmunds took over the voice and operation. The Head was absent from series twelve, thirteen, eighteen, and nineteen. When the show was revived, The Head was swapped out for a talking palm tree named Vincent van Coconut, voiced by Tim Hibber. That name is a playful nod to the painter Vincent van Gogh.

International broadcast

Disney Channel and its various offshoots have broadcast Art Attack in most territories since the late 1990s, producing localised versions of the programme for many countries. In Australia, it was broadcast on ABC from July 1995 to October 1999; later episodes were broadcast on Disney Channel, with the revived series being broadcast on Disney Junior and on various channels of the Seven Network. In Canada, the programme has aired variously on TVOKids, Family Jr. and Knowledge Kids; in the United States, it was broadcast on WAM! during the 1990s. Art Attack has also aired in several other countries such as SABC2 in South Africa, ZBC in Zimbabwe, StarHub and Disney Channel in Singapore, TVB in Hong Kong, KTN in Kenya, Channel 33 in the United Arab Emirates, Fun Channel and Disney Channel in the Middle East and RTB in Brunei. The original series, hosted by Neil Buchanan, has also been dubbed or subtitled in various non-English speaking countries, having been broadcast in various forms by Dragon Club in China, ET1 in Greece, Disney Channel in Taiwan and TRT in Turkey; in the Middle East, the Turkish version of the revived series has been subtitled into Arabic and broadcast by Jeem TV. In much of Latin America, the programme was broadcast on Discovery Kids during the 1990s, dubbed into Spanish and Portuguese. From 2000 to 2002, localised versions in Spanish and Portuguese were produced by Disney, which aired on Disney Channel Latin America and Disney Channel (Brazil) respectively, and hosted by Rui Torres; in later years, the British version was dubbed and broadcast by Disney in these territories. The Disney Channel (Portugal) version was hosted by Pedro Penim from 2002 to 2011, and Salvador Nery from 2011 to 2014. A Hindi version has been produced for India from 2011 to 2014, hosted by Gaurav Juyal; previously, the UK version was aired, dubbed in Hindi. A Scandinavian version of the program, hosted by Leon Jilber and produced in Swedish (with Danish and Norwegian dubs also available) initially aired on the Scandinavian version of Disney Junior, but has since moved to Disney Channel Scandinavia. An Italian version has been produced for Italy from 1998 to 2005 and from 2011 to 2014, hosted by Giovanni Muciaccia.