''Little Red Tractor'' is a British stop motion animated children's television series produced by The Little Entertainment Company and was co-produced by Entertainment Rights for the first two series. The ten-minute episodes were broadcast in the United Kingdom by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

on the

CBeebies CBeebies is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the brand used for all BBC content targeted for children aged six year ...

channel. Produced in

stop motion Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exh ...

model animation, the series is mainly aimed at

preschool A preschool (sometimes spelled as pre school or pre-school), also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, play school, is an school, educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they ...

ers and features unusually detailed sets and models. The series features the popular voices of

Stephen Tompkinson Stephen Phillip Tompkinson (born 15 October 1965) is an English actor, known for his television roles as Marcus in '' Chancer '' (1990), Damien Day in '' Drop the Dead Donkey'' (1990–1998), Father Peter Clifford in '' Ballykissangel'' (1996� ...

and

Derek Griffiths Derek Griffiths (born 15 July 1946) is a British actor, singer and voice artist who appeared in numerous British children's television series in the 1970s to present and has more recently played parts in television drama. Career Griffiths was ...

. The characters are based on the books by Colin Reeder, which were narrated for video in the mid 1990s by

Brian Glover Brian Glover (2 April 1934 – 24 July 1997) was an English actor and writer. He worked as a teacher and professional wrestler before commencing an acting career which included films, many roles on British television and work on the stage. His ...

and

Richard Briers Richard David Briers (14 January 1934 – 17 February 2013) was an English actor whose five-decade career encompassed film, radio, stage and television. Briers first came to prominence as George Starling in '' Marriage Lines'' (1961–66), but ...

History

Little Red Tractor Projects Limited owned the original Little Red Tractor video series. Although it didn't have television exposure, Little Red Tractor broke into the top ten children's videos and stayed there for several weeks. In total, the original series sold over 300,000 copies. Contender the distributor wanted to duplicate that success. However, the television rights were sold to Keith Littler's Little Entertainment Group because Peter Tye, the director/writer of the series, preferred their expertise in stop frame animation and empathy with the original. Despite losing the television rights to Little Red Tractor, Contender went ahead and produced their similar series,

CITV CITV is a British children's morning programming block on ITV2 and formerly a free-to-air channel owned by ITV plc. CITV, then Children's ITV, launched on 3 January 1983 as a late afternoon programming block on the ITV network for children aged ...

Tractor Tom ''Tractor Tom'' is a British animated children's television series, produced by the Contender Entertainment Group and Hibbert Ralph Entertainment. Two series were produced, consisting of 26 eleven-minute episodes each, which was aired between ...

. Despite apparent similarities to ''Tractor Tom'', ''Little Red Tractor'' has a completely different style, with more realistic story-lines, a larger human cast, and no surreal livestock behaviour.

Characters

*Stan (voiced by

) is Little Red Tractor's driver and constant companion. Stan lives at Gosling Farm, and keeps two cows Daisy and Veronica, and two pigs. *Little Red Tractor (leader) is a small and old but reliable red-coloured farm

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a Trailer (vehicle), trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or constructio ...

, mute but capable of expressing emotions. Stan restored him to his farm as in new condition. *Patch is Stan's dog. In the television series, Patch is depicted as a male, whereas in the original stories, Patch is depicted as a female. *Mr. Jones (voiced by

) is Stan's neighbour and owner of Big Blue Tractor and Harvey. He often appears selfish, materialistic or otherwise antisocial, but tends to be socially inept or smug rather than actually unpleasant. His first name is revealed to be Jasper and he lives at Beech Farm. *Big Blue Tractor (co-leader) is a large, updated, blue-coloured farm tractor owned by Mr. Jones. He has no humanised traits, but can blow his horn by himself. In the original stories he was named Big Fred. *Harvey is an orange-coloured

combine harvester The modern combine harvester, also called a combine, is a machine designed to harvest a variety of cultivated seeds. Combine harvesters are one of the most economically important labour-saving inventions, significantly reducing the fraction of ...

owned by Mr. Jones but sometimes borrowed by Stan. *Thomas is Mr. Jones' nephew who comes to stay at Beech farm with him on occasion since Mr. Jones' sister moved back from the city to the country. Thomas is learning to like the country life which he initially thought was smelly, dirty and not as good as computer games. *Stumpy (voiced by Jimmy Hibbert) is the miller. He appears friendly, mildly eccentric and clumsy. He drives his quadbike, "Nipper" very badly. Stumpy plays in Walter's band. *Elsie is Stumpy's wife. *Nipper is a purple-coloured quadbike ridden by Stumpy. *Ryan is the youngest neighbour of Stan. He and his sister like to play with Little Red Tractor and help out. *Amy is Ryan's sister. *Mr. Turvey (voiced by Jimmy Hibbert) is Ryan and Amy's father. He likes to run and plays keyboards in Walter's band. *Mrs. Turvey (voiced by Shireen Shah) is Ryan and Amy's mother. She likes to paint and does arts and crafts. *Walter (voiced by

) is an African-British mechanic who runs the Babblebrook garage and likes to play rock and roll. Walter is easily led astray. Walter is lead singer and plays the guitar for his band called Walter and the Wolverines. *Nicola (voiced by Shireen Shah) is Walter's daughter who also runs the garage. She tends to be far more sensible than her father. Nicola also plays an instrument in her father's band. *Leo is Walter's nephew, becomes a friend of Ryan and Amy. He is a more than competent drummer who stands in for Nicola in Walter's Band. *Sparky is a yellow and blue-coloured

tow truck A tow truck (also called a wrecker, a breakdown truck, recovery vehicle or a breakdown lorry) is a truck used to move disabled, improperly parked, Vehicle impoundment, impounded, or otherwise indisposed motor vehicles. This may involve recoverin ...

which Nicola and Walter drive. *Rusty is Walter's burgundy-coloured unreliable car and restoration project who unfortunately breaks down regularly.

Episodes

Series 1 (2004)

* 1. The Big Bang * 2. The Ladder * 3. The Gold Cup * 4. Little Red Tractor's Birthday * 5. Dog Gone * 6. The Lucky Day * 7. Berries * 8. Mr. Fixit * 9. Flying * 10. The Garage Sale * 11. Tiger, Tiger * 12. The Windy Day * 13. Farm of the Year * 14. Making Hay * 15. The Silence of the Cows * 16. The Big Sneeze * 17. The Secret Den * 18. Mr. Big * 19. The Detectives * 20. Roof Tops * 21. Winter Lights * 22. The Dam * 23. Bye Bye, Blue * 24. Enter the Dragon * 25. Water Water * 26. The Party

Series 2 (2005)

* 27. The Beast of Babble-Brook * 28. The New Engine * 29. The Town Boy * 30. Circles in the Corn * 31. Spuds * 32. Little Red Rocker * 33. Glorious Mud * 34. The New Addition * 35. The Tree House * 36. Traction Trouble * 37. Gone With the Wind * 38. Llama Drama * 39. Read All About It * 40. Marrow Mangler * 41. Buried Treasure * 42. The Ghost of Tawny Owl Wood * 43. The Beech Farm Flyer * 44. Paper Chase * 45. Molehills and Windmills * 46. May Day * 47. Scrambled Eggs * 48. Farm Games * 49. Double Trouble * 50. Hot Hot Hot * 51. Cheesed Off * 52. Magic Hat

Series 3 (2007)

* 53. Thunder and Dancing * 54. Row Yer Boat * 55. Lost! * 56. Up, Up and Away * 57. One Potato, Two Potato * 58. The Show Must Go On * 59. Too Cold for Snow * 60. Furry Jumper * 61. Topsy Turvey * 62. The Map * 63. The Hill * 64. Run * 65. Movie Madness * 66. Kart Race * 67. What's Up, Duck? * 68. Rambling Rabbits * 69. Milkshake * 70. Electric Trickery * 71. An Unwanted Tractor * 72. Raindance * 73. Bubblegum * 74. Countryside Code * 75. Welcome Home

Home media

Several DVD releases of the series have been released. The first five releases were also on VHS as well.

References

External links

* * {{IMDb title, id=0855525, title=Little Red Tractor 2004 British television series debuts 2007 British television series endings 2000s British animated television series 2000s British children's television series 2000s preschool education television series Animated preschool education television series Animated television series set on farms Australian Broadcasting Corporation original programming BBC high definition shows BBC children's television shows British children's animated adventure television series British children's animated comedy television series British children's animated fantasy television series British preschool education television series British stop-motion animated television series British television shows based on children's books British English-language television shows CBeebies BBC animated television series