Shaft was an English electronic music group, scoring a top 10 hit on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

in December 1991 with "Roobarb & Custard". It featured recreated

vocal The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production i ...

samples from the vintage children's television cartoon ''

Roobarb ''Roobarb'' (also known as ''Roobarb and Custard'') is a British animated children's television series, created by Grange Calveley and originally shown on BBC1 just before the evening news. Each cartoon, written by Calveley and directed by Bob ...

'', as well as a variety of sound effects. The main contributors were the British

record producer A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as ...

s Mark Pritchard and Adrian Hughes. Although the single reached the top 10 in 1991, it climbed to its highest position of No. 7 in January 1992. The follow-up track was "Monkey", which peaked at No. 61 in July 1992. The use of samples from children's television programmes was not unique to this hit within the genre, with

Mark Summers Mark Summers is the English CEO, sound engineer and music producer of Scorccio, a music production company founded in the UK in 1996. A London DJ since 1979, he is a guest lecturer and masterclass presenter on sample replay production, sound e ...

having sampled ''

The Magic Roundabout ''The Magic Roundabout'' is an English-language children's television programme that ran from 1965 to 1977. It used the footage of the French stop motion animation show ''Le Manège enchanté'' but with completely different scripts and characte ...

'' in his early 1991 hit " Summers Magic". However, Shaft was the first dance act to reach the top 10 with a track using this type of formula. Other groups who went on later in 1992 to repeat this success were

Urban Hype Urban Hype were an English breakbeat hardcore duo. The duo was formed in 1988, consisting of Bob Dibden (Robert John Dibden) and Mark Lewis (Mark Louis Chitty). They are best known for their toytown techno single, " A Trip to Trumpton", whic ...

, who reached No. 7 with " A Trip to Trumpton", and

Smart E's Luna-C (born Christopher Howell, 1 May 1973) is a British DJ and record producer, known for his work in breakbeat hardcore music. He was a member of the group Smart E's in 1992, who scored a 2 hit on the UK Singles Chart with "Sesame's ...

, who achieved a No. 2 hit with "

Sesame's Treet "Sesame's Treet" is a 1992 single by the English rave group Smart E's. Although it was a remix of " Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?", the song's title was a pun on "Sesame Street". The song reached 2 on the UK Singles Chart in Ju ...

". The string of similarly created

records A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, ...

were dubbed

toytown techno Toytown techno (also known as kiddy rave or cartoon rave) is an underground subgenre of techno that emerged in the early 1990s, characterized by merging techno, jungle, or breakbeat hardcore with samples from children's programs or public informa ...

References

English electronic music groups English dance music groups {{electronic-band-stub