''Bertha'' is a 13-episode British

stop motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames i ...

-animated children's television series about a factory machine of that name that aired from 1985 to 1986. All the characters were designed by

Ivor Wood Ivor Sydney Wood (4 May 1932 – 13 October 2004) was a prolific Anglo-French' animator, director, producer and writer. He was known for his work on children's television series. Born in Leeds to an English father and a French mother, his famil ...

, and the series was produced by his company,

Woodland Animations Ivor Sydney Wood (4 May 1932 – 13 October 2004) was a prolific Anglo-French' animator, director, producer and writer. He was known for his work on children's television series. Born in Leeds to an English father and a French mother, his famil ...

. It was broadcast on

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

, It was intended as a replacement to the ''

Postman Pat ''Postman Pat'' is a British stop-motion animated television series first produced by Woodland Animations. The series follows the adventures of Pat Clifton, a postman who works for Royal Mail postal service in the fictional village of Greendal ...

'' series, until the second series aired in 1996. A series of five storybooks based on ''Bertha'' was published by

André Deutsch André Deutsch (15 November 1917 – 11 April 2000) was a Hungarian-born British publisher who founded an eponymous publishing company in 1951. Biography Deutsch was born on 15 November 1917 in Budapest, Hungary, the son of a Jewish dentis ...

at the same time as the series was broadcast. They were adapted by Eric Charles and illustrated by Steve Augarde, who was also responsible for the artwork and music in the children's series ''

Bump Bump or Bumps may refer to: * A collision or impact * A raised protrusion on the skin such as a pimple, goose bump, prayer bump, lie bumps, etc. Infrastructure and industry * Coal mine bump, a seismic jolt occurring within a mine * Bump (u ...

''. The series was later repeated on

GMTV2 GMTV (an acronym for Good Morning Television), now legally known as ITV Breakfast, ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Limited, was the name of the national ITV (TV network), Channel 3 breakfast television contractor/licensee, broadcasting in the Unit ...

in the early 2000s along with ''

Penny Crayon ''Penny Crayon'' is a 1989 British children's television series that tells the adventures of a very intellectual and well-meaning (but occasionally mischievous) school-girl from London who loves to draw, and her escapades accompanied by her bes ...

''.

Plot

The series is set in an

industrial estate An industrial park (also known as industrial estate, trading estate) is an area zoned and planned for the purpose of industrial development. An industrial park can be thought of as a more "heavyweight" version of a business park or office park, ...

occupied by the Spottiswood & Company factory, a small

manufacturing plant A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an Industry (manufacturing), industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with Outline of industrial machinery, machinery, where workers manufacturing, manuf ...

producing a wide range of goods ranging from

cuckoo clock A cuckoo clock is, typically, a pendulum clock that strikes the hours with a sound like a common cuckoo call and has an automated cuckoo bird that moves with each note. Some move their wings and open and close their beaks while leaning forwards ...

s to windmill money boxes. Each episode focuses on a machine called Bertha that can produce any item requested of her. In each episode, the factory experiences a crisis affecting its daily production schedule, which Bertha invariably solves with the help of her factory worker friends.

Production

''Bertha'' was created by Woodland Animations, who also produced the shows ''

'', ''

Charlie Chalk ''Charlie Chalk'' is a British stop motion animation series produced in 1987 in the United Kingdom by Woodland Animations, who also produced the children's television programmes ''Postman Pat'', '' Gran'', and ''Bertha''. Reception to the show ...

'' and '' Gran'' for the BBC. Episodes were written by Eric Charles and Stephen Flewers, and designed, produced and directed by

, co-founder of the Woodland company.

Roy Kinnear Roy Mitchell Kinnear (8 January 1934 – 20 September 1988) was a British character actor. He was known for his roles in films such as The Beatles' ''Help!'' (1965), Clapper in '' How I Won the War'' (1967) and Planchet in ''The Three Musketeer ...

and Sheila Walker voiced the characters, and Kinnear narrated. The main title music (as well as some of the other songs) featured the singing of

Guy Fletcher Guy Edward Fletcher (born 24 May 1960) is an English multi-instrumentalist, best known for his position as one of the two Keyboard instrument, keyboard players in the rock band Dire Straits from 1984 until the group's dissolution, and his subs ...

. The songs "Tracy's Robot Song", "Mrs Tupp" and "Isn't it Nice?" from the ''Bertha'' 12-inch vinyl record feature the vocals of Stephanie de Sykes.

Main characters

* Mr. Willmake –

Manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

of the factory * Miss McClackerty – Mr. Willmake's secretary * Mr. Sprott – Chief

designer A designer is a person who plans the form or structure of something before it is made, by preparing drawings or plans. In practice, anyone who creates tangible or intangible objects, products, processes, laws, games, graphics, services, or exp ...

* Tracy James – Mr. Sprott's Assistant * Mr. Duncan – Works Foreman. Sometimes the antagonist in the story, since he regards Bertha as an old inefficient machine. * Ted Turner – Chief machine operator (who shows a number of influences of the late veteran TV presenter

Bruce Forsyth Sir Bruce Joseph Forsyth-Johnson (22 February 1928 – 18 August 2017) was a British entertainer and presenter whose career spanned more than 70 years. Forsyth came to national attention from the late 1950s through the ITV series '' Sunday Nig ...

) *Roy Willing – Assistant machine operator (it was never stated if he was named after the narrator

) * Mrs. Tupp – The

tea lady A tea lady provides drinks in an office, factory, hospital, or other place of work. The role under this name began in Britain during World War II, and continues in the National Health Service today. It used to be a wide-spread occupation for wo ...

* Panjit Singh –

Forklift truck A forklift (also called lift truck, jitney, hi-lo, fork truck, fork hoist, and forklift truck) is a powered industrial truck used to lift and move materials over short distances. The forklift was developed in the early 20th century by various c ...

operator, often has accidents that are no fault of his own. * Nell - Packer * Flo – Stacker * Bill and Horace - Burglars * T.O.M. – Talk Operated Machine, a

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...

resembling the Star Wars character

R2-D2 R2-D2 () or Artoo-Detoo is a fictional robot character in the ''Star Wars'' franchise created by George Lucas. He has appeared in ten of the eleven theatrical ''Star Wars'' films to date. At various points throughout the course of the films, R2, ...

designed by Tracy and built by Bertha to perform odd jobs around the factory. According to the song ''TOM the Robot'' from the episode ''TOM's New Friend'' and the ''Bertha'' 12" vinyl record, he is said to be Bertha's robot son. * Bertha - The title character, an old machine at the factory who has been modernised over the 50 years she has worked at the factory. She helps the rest of the Spottiswood & Company factory during each episode in some way or another.

Goods manufactured by ''Bertha'' throughout the series

* Musical

windmill A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called windmill sail, sails or blades, specifically to mill (grinding), mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and ...

money boxes *

Garden gnome Garden gnomes (german: links=no, Gartenzwerge, lit=garden dwarfs) are lawn ornament figurines of small humanoid creatures based on the mythological creature and diminutive spirit which occur in Renaissance magic and alchemy, known as gnomes. Th ...

s *

Beach ball ''Beach Ball'' is a 1965 American beach party movie starring Edd Byrnes and partly financed by Roger Corman.Ed. J. Philip di Franco, ''The Movie World of Roger Corman'', Chelsea House Publishers, 1979, p. 145 It features appearances by The Supre ...

s * Nuts and bolts * 365 springs * Inflatable plastic

bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nor ...

s * Plastic bath

sponges Sponges, the members of the phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), are a basal animal clade as a sister of the diploblasts. They are multicellular organisms that have bodies full of pores and channels allowing water to circulate through ...

Cuckoo clock A cuckoo clock is, typically, a pendulum clock that strikes the hours with a sound like a common cuckoo call and has an automated cuckoo bird that moves with each note. Some move their wings and open and close their beaks while leaning forwards ...

s * Humming tops *

Jack-in-the-box A jack-in-the-box is a children's toy that outwardly consists of a box with a crank. When the crank is turned, a music box mechanism in the toy plays a melody. After the crank has been turned a sufficient number of times (such as at the end ...

es *

Jigsaw puzzle A jigsaw puzzle is a tiling puzzle that requires the assembly of often irregularly shaped interlocking and mosaiced pieces, each of which typically has a portion of a picture. When assembled, the puzzle pieces produce a complete picture. In th ...

s *

Watering can A watering can (or watering pot) is a portable container, usually with a handle and a funnel, used to water plants by hand. It has been in use since at least A.D. 79 and has since seen many improvements in design. Apart from watering plants, it ha ...

s * Building blocks * Jumping

kangaroo Kangaroos are four marsupials from the family Macropodidae (macropods, meaning "large foot"). In common use the term is used to describe the largest species from this family, the red kangaroo, as well as the antilopine kangaroo, eastern gre ...

s * T.O.M. (Talk Operated Machine) – a

and Bertha’s son * A mechanical toy soldier for a contest

Episodes and broadcast dates

The first episode of ''Bertha'' premiered on

BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

on 1 April 1985 at 3:55pm after a 3:25pm screening of Daffy Duck's Easter Special. Episodes 2-7 were shown over the following weeks, omitting the

Easter Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel ...

and

May Day May Day is a European festival of ancient origins marking the beginning of summer, usually celebrated on 1 May, around halfway between the spring equinox and summer solstice. Festivities may also be held the night before, known as May Eve. T ...

holidays, and episodes 8–11 were first broadcast at the end of an autumn rerun. The BBC did not comply with an ordered schedule for the airing of the programme, and the last two episodes premiered in 1986 during a repeat season at 1:45pm and 1:30pm. The series was regularly repeated on BBC1/2 until 1998.

List of episodes

Merchandise

Merchandise for the programme was, and is, very minimal. The merchandise listed are the only items that have been discovered.

UK VHS and DVD releases

On 13 July 1987, after the episodes were shown on TV, the BBC released one video of the show. At some point in 1985, Bertha was featured on a Marks and Spencer (St. Michael) exclusive VHS release called ''Cartoon Favourites'' along with ''

The Family-Ness ''The Family-Ness'' is a British cartoon series first produced in 1983. It was originally broadcast on BBC One from 5 October 1984 to 5 April 1985, with repeats airing throughout most of the 90s and early 00s, eventually ending with a short run ...

'', ''

Ivor the Engine ''Ivor the Engine'' is a British cutout animation television series created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin's Smallfilms company. It follows the adventures of a small green steam locomotive who lives in the "top left-hand corner of Wales" ...

'', ''

Bagpuss ''Bagpuss'' is a British animated children's television series which was made by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate through their company Smallfilms. The series of thirteen episodes was first broadcast from 12 February to 7 May 1974. The title ch ...

'' and ''

Pigeon Street ''Pigeon Street'' is a cutout animated children's television series, written by Michael Cole, originally shown on the BBC in 1981 as part of its 'See-Saw' strand for preschoolers. There were two series with eight and five episodes respective ...

''. The "Mouse in the Works" episode of ''Bertha'' is on this release. On 27 November 1989 one episode of Bertha was on the VHS release which was exclusive to

W.H. Smith WHSmith (also written WH Smith, and known colloquially as Smith's and formerly as W. H. Smith & Son) is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, England, which operates a chain of high street, railway station, airport, port, hospital and m ...

''Postman Pat and Friends'' alongside ''

'' and ''

''. On 11 November 1991, one episode of ''Bertha'' was featured on the BBC VHS release ''Postman Pat and Company'' alongside ''

'' and ''

''. Hallmark and Carlton Home Entertainment released the first four episodes on a single video in 1994. In 2004 Entertainment Rights released a DVD of the show containing three of the same episodes as the Hallmark/Carlton Release, replacing "The Best Machine Competition" with "More Speed, Less Work" (albeit mistitled "The Best Machine competition"). In 2011, Classic Media released a DVD entitled ''Fun with Friends: Volume One'' containing one episode of ''Bertha''.

Australian DVD releases

While there are no known Australian VHS releases of the programme, two DVDs of the entire series have been released by Reel Entertainment. The DVD cover claimed that the show was made by "the makers of ''

'' and ''

Thomas and Friends ''Thomas & Friends'' (originally known as ''Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends'' and later ''Thomas & Friends: Big World! Big Adventures!'') is a British children's television series that aired across 24 series from 1984 to 2021. Based on ''The ...

''." However, this is only true for ''Charlie Chalk'' (since the slogan was used on all the Woodland Animations DVDs in Australia), because

Jocelyn Stevenson Jocelyn Stevenson is a British-American writer and producer, largely for children's shows. She has received the BAFTA Special Award. Screenwriting credits Television * ''Fraggle Rock'' (1983-1987) * ''Sesame Street'' (1987-1989) * ''Charlie Chalk ...

(writer of ''Charlie Chalk'') became the executive producer on ''Thomas and Friends'' from the seventh series (2003) until the tenth series (2006).

Photobooks

In 1985, to accompany the programme, some photobooks were released with altered titles to fit the style of the books. These were very similar to the ''Postman Pat'' photobooks, where the front cover would be an original illustration and all pictures within the book were images from the TV programme. * ''Bertha and the Great Painting Job (The Great Painting Job)'' * ''Bertha and the Windmills (The Windmills)'' * ''Bertha and the Mouse in the Works (A Mouse in the works)'' * ''Bertha and the Best Machine Competition (The Best Machine Competition)'' * ''Bertha and the Lost TOM (T.O.M. Gets Lost)'' * ''Bertha and the Flying Bear (The Flying Bear)''

Vinyl record

In 1986, after broadcast ended, the BBC's record label released a 12" vinyl record containing songs from the TV series. Tracks marked with an asterisk (*) did not feature in the TV series. However, it is possible that the song "Mr. Duncan" was to feature in the episode "More Speed, Less Work" but was not included due to it making the episode too long. The same is the case with "Mr. Willmake" possibly featuring in the episode "Bertha's Birthday". The album also had a cassette release with the reference number of ZCR 585.

Board game

In 1987, Falcon released a board game using illustrations similar to those seen on the front covers of the photobooks. The game itself does not differ much from the Monopoly series of board games. If a player lands on T.O.M., they are allowed to ask Bertha to make an item for them.

Advent calendar

In 1985, an Advent calendar using the same profile image as the vinyl record was released.

Annuals

From 1985 to 1988, ''Bertha'' featured in a total of four annuals: * ''Bertha'' annual 1985 * ''Bertha'' annual 1986 * ''Buttons'' (based on Children's BBC) annual 1987 (along with ''Postman Pat'', ''King Rollo'', ''Towser'', ''Henry's Cat'' and ''Jimbo and the Jet Set'') * ''Buttons'' annual 1988 (along with ''Postman Pat'', ''Charlie Chalk'', ''Henry's Cat'', ''Towser'', ''King Rollo'' and ''Spot'')

Credits

* Written by: Eric Charles * Narration by: Roy Kinnear * Voices by: Roy Kinnear and Sheila Walker * Music and lyrics by: Bryan Daly * Director of animation: Derek Mogford * Series designed and directed by: Ivor Wood * Film editor: Martin Bohan * Song vocals: Guy Fletcher * Recorded at: Havoc House Studios * Sound by: Clive Pendry * Produced by: Woodland Animations Ltd * © Woodland Animations Ltd MCMLXXXV

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, id=0211240, title=Bertha
Little Gems

BBC children's television shows British stop-motion animated television series 1985 British television series debuts 1986 British television series endings 1980s British children's television series British children's animated adventure television series Television series by Universal Television DreamWorks Classics English-language television shows 1980s British animated television series