Oscar and Friends
| Oscar and Friends | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Adventure Animated Fantasy |
| Created by | Cameron Chittock |
| Written by |
Steve Ballantyne Cameron Chittock Kate Guthrie Kerry Jimson Duncan Smith Jeffrey Thomas Kate Ward |
| Opening theme | Oscar and Friends Theme Song |
| Composer(s) | Peter Haeder |
| Country of origin | New Zealand |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 26 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Sue Hardy |
| Editor(s) | Duncan Smith (series script editor) |
| Running time | 5 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Gnome Productions Ltd. |
| Distributor | Southern Star Sales |
| Release | |
| Original release | 1995 – 1999 |
Oscar and Friends is a 26-episode claymation children's series from New Zealand that ran from 1995–1999. The series was made in Wellington, New Zealand, and was aimed at children aged 3 to 6. The series was produced by Gnome Productions Ltd., distributed by Southern Star Sales, and funded by NZ On Air and Southern Star Entertainment. Oscar and Friends" has been screened all around the world including on ITV in UK (where the series rated number ten for kids in its first year of release), Fox in USA, ABC in Australia. and Magic Kids in Argentina.
Cameron Chittock decided to start making his own television programs after years of working for the TV3 Network in New Zealand. He came up with the basic concept for a show about a young boy who was bored on his own at home. When his two imaginary friends appear, they take the boy off on an adventure into an fantasy world. Initially, the idea was conceptualized as a live action show using Chittock's background in puppetry and SFX to create the imaginary characters and fantastic settings. However, monetary issues became apparent as a series based on this approach became budgeted. Chittock realised it was simply not financially viable to produce the TV show in this manner. He then began to experiment with stop frame animation and saw the possibilities of using this medium to produce the action-adventure series. He turned to his friend, and award winning animation director, Euan Frizzell at Gnome Productions for support. They jointly applied for funding and were successful in gaining the finance required from NZ On Air in New Zealand to produce the show. Executive producer Shaun Bell brought Southern Star Sales on board to distribute the series, and invest into the production which allowed the 13 × 7 minutes episodes to grow into 26 × 5 minutes episodes, which the distributor believed would better meet international format requirements.
Although Chittock and a small group of technicians in New Zealand had gained some experience in clay-mation techniques up to that point, he still felt the crew required further training. He traveled to the UK and met up with Aardman animation director Richard Starzaki (aka Richard Goleszowski, who was the creator of the Aardman production Rex the Runt and director of the claymation series Creature Comforts). Starzak agreed to come back with Chittock to New Zealand to help train the Oscar and Friends animating crew. The input from both Starzak and Australian stop frame animator Norman Yeend proved immensely helpful, and enabled the New Zealand team to produce the high quality results that Chittock felt necessary to ensure the series would hold up against international competition. Chittock and his crew went on to successfully complete the series, and in the process set up a small claymation industry within New Zealand.
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