Come Outside
| Come Outside | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genre |
Children's Educational Comedy |
| Created by | Elizabeth Bennett |
| Directed by | Elizabeth Bennett Peter Rose |
| Starring |
Lynda Baron Pippin (series 1) Mr. Higgins (as Pippin) |
| Composer(s) | Jonathan Cohen |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 40 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Judy Whitfield Stacey Adams Anne Brogan |
| Producer(s) | Elizabeth Bennett |
| Location(s) | Middlesex & Buckinghamshire |
| Editor(s) | David Austin Jon Bignold |
| Camera setup | Graham Latter Lee Pulbrook Jeremy Braben |
| Running time | 14 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Tricorn Productions Spelthorne Productions |
| Release | |
| Original network |
BBC Two CBBC CBeebies |
| Picture format | 576i (4:3 SDTV) (broadcast in 14:9 until 2012) |
| Original release | 23 September 1993 – 18 March 1997 |
| External links | |
| Website | www |
Come Outside is an award-winning, British educational children's television series that ran from 23 September 1993 to 18 March 1997. It remains one of the BBCs most watched children's programs and due to its popularity was repeated on CBeebies until late 2012.
The series aims to encourage young children to learn about the world around them. The starting point for each programme is something with which children may already be familiar, such as wood, paper, boots, spiders, buses, soap and street lamps.
The two main characters are Auntie Mabel (played by Lynda Baron), and her dog Pippin, who was initially played by a female dog called Pippin, and later by the dog's grandson, Mr. Higgins. A feature of Come Outside is Auntie Mabel's unusual mode of transport: a small, spotty aeroplane.
Pippin was a mixed-breed dog, half Tibetan Terrier, half Bearded Collie, roughly third generation descended from the famous American acting dog Benji and was owned and trained by the award-winning animal trainer Ann Head. Pippin was quite old at the start of the first series in 1993 and so she performed the slower but complex moves while her grandson, Mr. Higgins, performed any physically demanding actions.
Pippin retired at the end of Series 1 and Mr. Higgins took over the role of 'Pippin' entirely for Series 2 and 3. Mr. Higgins also starred as the Bakers dog for Bakers Complete pet food commercials and is still pictured on the products. He died in 2008 of old age while his grandmother, the original Pippin, died in the late 1990s.
Many other animals took part in Come Outside. Specially-shot footage included snails from London Zoo, exotic frogs at Chester Zoo, geese at Folly Farm in Gloucestershire, rabbits at Tilgate Park in West Sussex, butterflies in the Butterfly Centre, Eastbourne, hedgehogs supplied by St. Tiggywinkles Animal Hospital and spiders from a private collection. In addition archive shots were provided by the BBC's Natural History Film Library in Bristol.
Elizabeth Bennett created the format and characters, wrote the scripts, directed many of the programmes and produced all three series.
Two different production companies were involved. Series 1 was made by Spelthorne Productions, which has since closed. Series 2 and 3 were made by Elizabeth Bennett's production company Tricorn Associates.
Aerial views of the various locations visited by Auntie Mabel were shot by Jeremy Braben.
Series 1 was set in a cottage on the corner of Denham Airfield in Buckinghamshire, and was used to provide the exterior shots of Auntie Mabel's house. She would come out of the house, walk through the back garden and on to the airfield to climb into her aeroplane. The interiors were shot at Capital Studios in Wandsworth, South West London.
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Wikipedia