Torchy the Battery Boy
| Television series | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Torchy the Battery Boy |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| year | 1959 |
| Production company |
AP Films |
| length | 15 minutes |
| Episodes | 52 in 2 seasons |
| genre |
Science fiction , children's and youth series |
| Theme music | Torchy by Roberta Leigh / Barry Gray |
| idea | Roberta Leigh / Gerry Anderson |
| production | Gerry Anderson / Roberta Leigh |
| camera | unknown |
| cut | unknown |
| First broadcast | unknown on Associated Television |
Torchy the Battery Boy is a British children's television series with fantasy and science fiction elements by Gerry Anderson from 1958, which was created in collaboration with the well-known author Roberta Leigh . The collaboration between Anderson and Leigh ended after the first season, the second season was produced by Leigh in association with Associated British Pathé and directed by Vivian Milroy .
action
The old Irish gentleman Mr. Bumbledrop lives in a cottage with a lovely garden where the neighborhood children can play. His roommate is the clockwork poodle Pom-Pom, which Mr. Bumbledrop designed himself. The children especially like to play with their toy kites in the garden.
One day, Bossy Boots, the leader of the children, got the idea to let her toys fly on kites. Pom-Pom warns them that the kites could fly away in the strong wind, but they don't listen to him. A sudden storm wind tears the kite lines out of the children's hands. Pom-Pom tries to hold on to Bossy Boot's leash, but is swept away in the storm. The dragons and the toys blow away. The children are annoyed and no longer want to play in Mr. Bumbledrop's garden, although it is their fault that the toys have disappeared.
Mr. Bumbledrop is very sad about the loss of pom-pom and the toys. Overnight he constructs the clockwork boy Torchy, who has a built-in lamp ( torch = flashlight, among other things) on his forehead. When Torchy wakes up, the lamp is found to have a magical beam that is X-ray quality. Torchy discovers a star that Pom-Pom with the dragons landed on.
To get pom-pom and the toy off the star, Mr. Bumbledrop Torchy builds a space rocket . Torchy lands on the star and is now in Topsy Turvy Land, where the conditions are completely different from those on earth and where the toys abused by the earth children live. Since the toys are doing very well here, they do not want to return to earth, especially since there they would be accepted as dead objects in their original state.
In Topsy Turvy Land, Torchy meets strange characters with whom he goes on adventures: King Dithers, the ruler of the country who lives in the Orange Peel Palace, Squish, the space boy who comes from a country called America and has a water pistol , the rag dolls piraten Pongo, who leads a pirate ship made of grapefruit peel, Flopsy, the forgetful rag doll, Pilliweg, the toy clown and Sparky, the baby kite .
Torchy lives in Frutown, but he and Pom-Pom must return to Earth as they need to be raised and Torchy's battery needs to be charged. One day Bossy Boots, who is not always friendly to adults, also lands on the star, so Torchy tries to improve her behavior.
Production history
The idea for the series came from Roberta Leigh, who also wrote all the scripts. The first 26 episodes were exclusively directed by Anderson. Leigh wrote a song for each episode, which was set to music by Barry Gray. The shooting took place in the winter of 1958/59 when the Themsetal was at times heavily flooded and the studio could only be reached by boat.
The dolls were all made in Christine Glenville's parents' garage , with her father carving the wood and her mother sewing the clothes. It was in this series that automatic lip-synching was used for the first time, which was perfected in later series by Anderson.
literature
- Simon Archer / Marcus Hearn: What made Thunderbirds Go! The authorized biography of Gerry Anderson , London (BBC Worldwide Limited) 2002, pp. 88-101. ISBN 0-563-53481-8
- Adam Pirani: The Complete Gerry Anderson Episode Guide , London (Titan Books Ltd) 1989, pp. 51-60. ISBN 1-85286-216-5
Web links
- Torchy the Battery Boy in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Episode 1, Pom-Pom and the Toys on youtube.com