''Mr. Piper'' is a 1963 Canadian children's TV series. The series was created by Martin Andrews and Allan Wargon, who was also the producer. 39 episodes were produced.

Overview

The show's host was a large Canadian opera tenor

Alan Crofoot Alan Crofoot (June 2, 1929 – March 5, 1979) was a Canadian operatic Heldentenor, character tenor specialist, and actor. He was also the host of '' Mr. Piper'', a 1960s children's television series that aired on the CBC in Canada. Career C ...

, dressed as a

Pied Piper The Pied Piper of Hamelin (, also known as the Pan Piper or the Rat-Catcher of Hamelin) is the title character of a legend from the town of Hamelin (Hameln), Lower Saxony, Germany. The legend dates back to the Middle Ages. The earliest refere ...

with a flower in his hat. He would introduce four segments in each half-hour programme: *''Teletune'' - as a narrator of limited animation cartoons of fantasy stories *''Port of Call'' - presenter of films about children and events in other lands; *''Bag of Tricks'' - Crofoot performs magic tricks; *''Animal Farm'' - many farmyard characters telling the story of the day in miniature barnyard sets, featuring Rupert the Rat, Bessie the Bunny, Kookie the Kitten, Harriet Hen, Freddie Frog, Calvin (Rac)Coon and Charlotte Cow. Thirty-nine episodes were produced. It was originally shown by

CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV, or simply CBC) is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcasting, p ...

and also became well known in the United Kingdom,Sterling Times
/ref> where it was repeated on

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: Television TV stations/networks/channels ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network and company, including: **ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network in the United Kingd ...

throughout the 1960s and 1970s, often as part of school summer holiday programming. In May/June 1972, some ''Mr. Piper'' episodes were transmitted, dubbed into Italian, by the RAI-TV network.

Episode list

*Oh My Baby *

Ali Baba "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" () is a folk tale in Arabic added to the ''One Thousand and One Nights'' in the 18th century by its French translator Antoine Galland, who heard it from Syrian storyteller Hanna Diyab. As one of the most popu ...

*Brave Molly *It's A Triple *Touch Me *Hasty and the Princess *The Kindhearted Girl *The Magic Horn *The Three Sisters *The Proud Princess *It Grew Two Sizes *Ahmed the Merchant *

Hansel and Gretel "Hansel and Gretel" (; ) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 as part of ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' (KHM 15). Hansel and Gretel are siblings who are abandoned in a forest and fall into the hands of a witch ...

The Wild Swans "The Wild Swans" () is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a princess who rescues her 11 brothers from a spell cast by an evil queen. The tale was first published on 2 October 1838 in Andersen's '' Fairy Tales Told for C ...

* The Tin Soldier *The Three Brothers *Hassan the Simple *The Three Soldiers

References

External links

*
Alan Crofoot on ''Canadian Encyclopedia''
1960s Canadian animated television series Television series by ITC Entertainment CBC Television original programming 1963 Canadian television series debuts 1964 Canadian television series endings 1960s Canadian children's television series Black-and-white Canadian television shows Canadian television series with live action and animation British English-language television shows {{ITCDistributions-stub