Noggin the Nog
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Noggin the Nog was a popular British children's television series originally shown by the BBC in the United Kingdom during the years 1959 to 1965. Thirty-six programmes were made, originally in black and white, and running for ten minutes long, by a company called Smallfilms, the brainchild of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin. When the program made a comeback in 1979, it only ran for just six episodes. The series was also colorized and is one of the stories that is a remake of the earlier version of Noggin The Nog: Noggin and the Ice Dragon . The second installment of Noggin the Nog ran until the summer of 1980. The level of stop-motion animation was basic, but this did not detract from the popularity of the series. The series was repeated on BBC into the late 1960s.
Strictly speaking, the title is "The Saga of Noggin the Nog", since the stories were based on the principle of a Norse saga, and every episode began with the words, "Listen to me and I will tell you the story of Noggin the Nog, as it was told in the days of old..." This, combined with Vernon Elliot's haunting bassoon score, conveyed a slightly "creepy" atmosphere, which children found a little frightening and consequently even more exciting.
Visually, it was primarily inspired by the Lewis chessmen (of Norse origin), in fact one story is about Noggin playing Chess with Nogbad the Bad. Linguistically, the hero's name is from 'noggin', one of the very few surviving words of the ancient Celtic Brythonic language of pre-Roman Britain, which survives in the common phrase "use your noggin" (i.e.: 'use your head, think about a problem in order to solve it').
The stories were based around the central character of Noggin, a rather simple, good-natured prince. In the early episodes, he married an Eskimo princess, Nooka, and they had a son, Knut, who came to the fore in some of the later episodes. Other regular characters were: Noggin's friend, Thor Nogson; an eccentric inventor, Olaf the Lofty; and a big green bird called Graculus whose origins were slightly obscure. Although the individual stories varied, any trouble encountered by the heroes was usually caused by Nogbad the Bad, Noggin's wicked uncle who wanted the throne for himself.
Various Noggin short stories were also published, and a visitor in one of them, Noggin and the Moon Mouse, later provided the basis for the characters in the popular Clangers TV series.
The complete series was released on DVD in 2005, in a package which also included DVD versions of the short story books.
