Tree Fu Tom
| Tree Fu Tom | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Developed by | CBeebies In House Production, FremantleMedia Enterprises |
| Written by | Daniel Bays, Douglas Wood, Ian Carney, Moya O'Shea, Darren Jones, Allan Plenderleith, Corey Powell, Richard Preddy, John Loy, Sindy McKay, Richard Dinnick |
| Directed by | Adam Shaw |
| Starring | Adam Henderson |
| Voices of | Sophie Aldred, David Tennant, Tim Whitnall, Samantha Dakin, Sharon D Clarke |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of episodes | 74 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Daniel Bays |
| Running time | 22–25 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network |
CBeebies Sprout |
| Original release | 5 March 2012 |
Tree Fu Tom is a live-action/CGI CBeebies children's television program which has been shown on BBC and CBeebies in the UK and Sprout and NBC Kids in the USA. It is set in a miniature magical countryside and village area (Treetopolis) on the top of a part of a trunk of a big tree in a British-type woodland, where the trunk turns horizontal and then vertical again. Its characters are mostly anthropomorphized arthropods (which are not to size scale with each other as in reality). The programme is aimed at 2-6 year olds.
In it, some species of insects are raised and controlled like cattle on a ranch: aphids, ladybirds, a rhinoceros beetle.
In each episode, Tom (live-acted) comes out of his house's back door, puts on a power belt, and runs across his lawn into a woodland, barely clearing a bike laid on the grass. In there is the tree with Treetopolis on, protected by a magic shield. Using the power belt he performs some Tree Fu moves, jumps up, shrinks to insect size as he flies into the tree, and enters the world of Treetopolis, where he has adventures. He is skilled in that world's magic, and often gets characters out of scrapes. The tree's sap is shown as a glowing orange magic liquid.
At least twice in each episode, Tom has to call on "the big world" for magical help: breaking the fourth wall, he asks the audience to make magical moves and say magical words to assist the necessary magical actions. The magical power is shown as an orange glow that appears offscreen and flies towards at Tom, who collects it in his arms as a ball of energy, and uses it to complete the spell.
The movements which the audience are called on to make are particularly beneficial for the development of children with developmental coordination disorder.
The scenario includes magical hoverboards (called "leaf boards"), a sport called "Squizzle" and lots of different cakes and snacks that the inhabitants of Treetopolis like to eat!
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Wikipedia