The Adventures of Abney & Teal

Did You Know?

• The show was released on DVD by Abbey Home Media as "The Adventures of Abney & Teal: Faraway Island and Other Adventures", containing eight episodes.
• In Australia, BBC Worldwide released "The Adventures of Abney & Teal: Outdoor Adventures" on DVD with five episodes.
• The show was released on eight volumes on DVDs by BBC Worldwide in China.

Characters

The programme centres on two animated rag dolls, Abney and Teal, who live on an island in a lake in a park in a city. Abney, a blue cat-like ragdoll, resides in a hut at the base of a tree and owns many objects he is fond of; his main hobby is making porridge for others. He wears a grey and white jumper, a long orange scarf and trousers, has fabric-like grey fur and floppy ears. Teal, Abney's adventurous best friend, sleeps in the branches of the same tree with only a blanket and an umbrella. She has pigtails with one green and one blue ribbon, and wears a yellow and pink dress with two pockets, jeans, and red shoes. Their environment includes several friends: Neep, a small turnip-like creature who digs underground and communicates only by saying "Neep" in different tones; Bop, an aquatic brown furry mammal resembling a male elephant seal, who drinks lake water from a teacup and can inflate to great sizes, and in one episode is revealed to have babies that eventually grow up and swim away; the Poc-Pocs, seven identically-shaped but differently-sized comma-shaped wooden objects or hard tropical tree seeds named after the noise they make; Toby Dog, a diatonic button accordion-playing dog who sits upright against a tree on the opposite shore, normally playing the same tune but occasionally a variation such as a lullaby; and Neep's Friends and Relations, a group of Neep-like characters of different colours, sizes, and features who visit from time to time.

Production

Anne Wood, who founded Ragdoll Productions and created Teletubbies, Tots TV, Rosie & Jim, and In the Night Garden... for the BBC, produced this show. She had long admired Joel Stewart’s picture books for their “distinct brand of gentle, fantastical humour and exquisite drawing style,” but it was his work on Addis Berner Bear Forgets that led her to reach out. Stewart also directed the series and spent three years developing it before its debut. He noted that all the characters came from his own sketchbooks, and the setting was inspired by a trip to Victoria Park in East London. Steve Roberts and Matilda Tristram co-wrote the show. Real-life models were photoscanned into movable rigs to create the animation. British actor Adrian Scarborough narrates and voices Abney, while Shingai Shoniwa, lead singer of the Noisettes, voices Teal. No other characters speak except Neep, who can say his own name. Episodes run about eleven minutes each. The first 26-episode series began airing in the UK in September 2011. Aimed at three-to-six-year-olds, the show also drew an adult audience, with critics comparing it to Oliver Postgate’s work. BBC licensing manager Julie Kekwith described its retro feel in 2011, saying it would “appeal to adults and parents as well as children” and had a “unique nostalgic and literary feel.” Kate Monaghan called the animation “old-fashioned, puppet-esque,” while ITV Studios’ Fernando De Jesus noted its “sort of chic brashness.” In January 2012, Rainbow Designs announced a line of soft toys and games. The first six episodes of Series 2 aired in April 2012, and the remaining 20 began on 28 October 2012, for a total of 26 episodes in the second series.