Robbie the Reindeer
| Robbie the Reindeer | |
|---|---|
| Genre |
Stop motion Clay animation |
| Written by | Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of episodes | 3 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | BBC One |
Robbie the Reindeer is a series of three animated comedy television specials shown on BBC One at Christmas, filmed in aid of Comic Relief.
Written by Kevin Cecil and Andy Riley, the programmes follow the adventures of Robbie, the son of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The three episodes produced so far are titled "Hooves of Fire", "The Legend of the Lost Tribe" and "Close Encounters of the Herd Kind". Mark Knopfler composed most of the music for the television specials; along with the accompaniment of Guy Fletcher.
Robbie is portrayed as being the lazy, overweight son of (an implied, but never explicitly mentioned nor seen) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, with a nose possessing many unique capabilities and powers. Whilst his father's nose lights up Robbie's works as a worldwide tracking device that assists him in locating the North Pole and he hopes to join Santa Claus's famed team of reindeer. He is depicted as being an underdog character due to his lazy personality aspects, but is trained under the tutelage of elderly reindeer coach Old Jingle for the Reindeer Games. Other characters featured in the story are based on several traditional reindeer depicted on Santa Claus's team, including Vixen, Robbie's attractive original love interest (who he later abandons in favour of Donner, who also is depicted as being female); Prancer, a male reindeer; Donner, Robbie's later love interest and wife; and Blitzen, the primary antagonist of the first and second film who bitterly despises Robbie's famous father for overtaking his position as the head reindeer and frequently conspires against Robbie out of vengeance.
Rudolph is not mentioned by name for copyright reasons.
In the original British production, Robbie was voiced by Ardal O'Hanlon and was narrated by Robbie Williams. Other voices were provided by Jane Horrocks, Steve Coogan, Paul Whitehouse, Harry Enfield, Jeff Goldblum, David Attenborough (as himself), Alistair McGowan and Ricky Gervais, among others. The director was Richard Goleszowski of Aardman Animations. Though not technically an Aardman production, several of the company's staff did work on the project, since it has Aardman's-esque visual style. The executive producer was Richard Curtis.
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