Jedi's Paradise - Childrens TV

History

Captain 'Horatio' Pugwash was created in 1950 by John Ryan and appeared in the first 12 issues of the 'Eagle' comic. He was turned down by 12 publishers before Captain Pugwash was published. He created the comic strips - 'Harris Tweed: Extra Special Agent' and 'Lettice Leefe: the Greenest Girl in School'. Also he created Sir Prancelot.

In 1957 Captain Pugwash appeared on BBC television for the first time and approximately 120 episodes were produced. All the voices and narration were provided by Peter Hawkins.

John Ryan devised his own method of animation, using cut-out puppets and props with cardboard levers to make boats rock and to help the characters move their eyes, mouths and limbs (see the Puffin Annual article below for a behind the scenes insight).

Contrary to popular belief, the names of Captain Pugwash's crew were not in any way smutty! Which the Guardian newspaper (UK) found out to its cost, when they published an article about the programme characters having smutty names. A lawsuit on behalf of John Ryan ensued and the paper had to print an apology and pay damages.

In 1998 a new series was commissioned called - The Adventures of Captain Pugwash. It consisted of 26 episodes at cost of £1.5 million to make. This version of Captain Pugwash was state-of-the-art and produced on computers. This time the voices were provided by James Saxon.

Story

Captain Pugwash was a pirate of the high seas who commanded the ship, The Black Pig. He was supported in his adventures by his able crew, Pirate Barnabas, Master Mate, Pirate Willy and Tom the Cabin Boy.

Captain Pugwash's search for the hidden treasure involved him in all sorts of terrible mishaps including the odd scrape with his arch-enemy, Cut-throat Jake, Pirate Captain of the Flying Dustman.

Article in Puffin Annual No.1 (1974)

In Puffin Annual No.1 John Ryan was interviewed and he gave an insight into what happened behind the scenes. The interview and the pictures are shown here.

Captain Pugwash Rides The Waves

John Ryan, creator of Captain Pugwash and Sir Prancelot tells us how his stories are made into films for the television screen.

If you think that I make cartoon programmes in the same way as Walt Disney cartoons, you're wrong. These kind of films are made by what is known as 'stop-frame' animation, and are very expensive and take a long time and a lot of people. The illusion of movement is given by showing twenty-five different pictures every second and very large numbers of artists and technicians are involved. My method is far simpler. Most of the work is done by three of us in my studio; and, although in terms of movement the result may be less convincing, it is a much cheaper and quicker way of telling stories on the television screen, and it seems to work.

Almost as important as the pictures is the sound. At the recording studio we meet Peter Hawkins, the actor whose ability to speak with any number of different voices is truly amazing. Peter tells the story and speaks the parts of all the characters into the microphone, and it's very hard to keep a straight face as he does it because he has a way of miming the action as well! Then we make the sound effects, clashing table knives for a sword fight, for example, and choose other noises, such as explosions, from the record library. The music is specially composed and played by Johnny Pearson for the Pugwash series. Finally my editor Barry Shephard mixes voices, sound effects and music onto a 16 millimetre magnetic sound track. And he times it, so that it lasts exactly five minutes.

When we have completed the sound track and the captions (incidentally fifty of them mounted on thick card make quite a heavy load) we set off for a small film studio in North London which specialises in puppet animation. It is an exciting house filled with miniature



The Black Pig in Port	Quayside: Captain Pugwash boards his ship


The Captain's breakfast, Tom in attendance	The Mate, anxious


Pirates in conference	Cannon practice


Preparing for Action	Cut-throat Jake comes ashore


film sets and puppets of every description. Usually the experts, Bob Burn and John Hardwick, produce 'stop-frame' animation but for Pugwash they provide lighting and a 16 millimetre camera so that we can film our pictures at work just as actors are filmed in the making of a full-scale film. The illustration below was actually taken with different helpers because we were making the 'Sir Prancelot' series, but it shows how the captions are set up, with all of us gathered round the easel.

Each of us has a job to do in the animation of the picture. Priscilla, my wife, usually looks after the levers which control the mouth movements. Hazel operates the tape recorder and keeps a careful log of the filming. Thus if the first picture shows Captain Pugwash saying 'Full speed ahead, me hearties' we listen to the tape several times while Priscilla practices the mouth movements, Sara works the Captain's eyes and I look after the arms and make them point in the right direction at the right time. When we all know what to do we film that little bit of the story. If something goes wrong the first time we shoot it again.

We go right through the whole story, filming each scene in order and keeping a careful note of what has happened. At the end of the day we have probably used up about 400 feet of film and have the whole story 'in the can'. This goes off to the laboratory to be processed and comes back two days later in the form of a colour negative (which is precious and must not be touched), and rough prints in black and white which are known as 'rushes'. We look at these on a screen to see if anything has gone wrong, and we retake anything that has. For example, we have to make sure that the camera has only taken the picture itself and hasn't 'shot off to reveal the levers and even the hands of the people working them. In the colour illustrations on the previous pages you can see the difference between the picture as you will see it on your TV screen and the whole caption with the working parts round the edge. You will notice too that some pictures are different shapes, some long and some larger than others. This is so that John Hardwick our cameraman can zoom in and out on some scenes or move about over the picture if needed.

The final stage is the editing and this takes me back to Barry (who helped to make the sound-track in the first place). He has a special machine which enables us to play the sound on the one side and see the picture on a miniature screen on the other. 'Editing' means choosing the best film sequences, and cutting them into lengths so that they fit exactly to the sound-track. When all the bits have been joined together we have what is known as a 'rough-cut' film, in black and white which is good enough to examine and decide on any changes which might be necessary. And when the film is finally approved in this form, the negative is cut and joined to match it and the laboratories produce the colour print. And this is the film which, with the sound track, goes to the BBC and will eventually be transmitted onto your television screen.

All of this may sound like a very long operation just to produce one five-minute film, but in fact it is far quicker than other methods of animation. Even so, it will take us about ninety weeks to make the whole series of thirty, five-minute stories. As I am writing this I have completed fourteen of my new series. I haven't the faintest idea what the next sixteen adventures will be about, but with luck and a certain amount of hard thinking the ideas will come. Then they will be shown on television. We start off with nothing more than a few sheets of coloured card, watercolour paints, glue and brass paper-clips. Three weeks later, with the help of all the skilful people I have mentioned, we have a film. It's all a lot of fun, and if I can entertain you all and at the same time make a living out of it I'm very happy.



Treasure!	"Help! It's Cut-throat Jake!"


Jake and his crew with a fit of the sneezes	Pugwash and Tom in the dingy

	Pugwash and the Sea-monster This shows how the leavers operate: 'A' pulls the sea through to give forward movement. 'B' opens the monster's eye, 'C' the monster's mouth, 'D' shudders Pugwash and 'E' moves the caption up and down to give extra movement.


The pirates have a party.	Clap your hands and sing...

© Penguin Books Ltd & John Ryan


Gallery

The Adventures of Captain Pugwash Episodes