''Orm and Cheep'' is a 1980s British

children's television series Children's television series (or children's television shows) are television programs designed for children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run during the early evenin ...

that was aimed at the younger viewers of

Children's ITV CITV (short for Children's ITV, also known as the CITV Channel) is a British free-to-air children's television channel owned by ITV plc. It broadcasts content from the CITV archive and acquisitions, every day from 6 am to 9 pm which ...

. It used

puppet A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or Legendary creature, mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. The puppeteer uses movements of their hands, arms, or control devices such as rods ...

s as the main characters (Orm being a

worm Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always). Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete wor ...

and Cheep being a

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

) and was narrated by

Richard Briers Richard David Briers (14 January 1934 – 17 February 2013) was an English actor whose five-decade career encompassed film, radio, stage and television. Briers first came to prominence as George Starling in ''Marriage Lines'' (1961–66), but ...

. The show was created by Tony Martin, the puppets created by Mary Edwards. There were a total of 26 episodes, which spanned between the years of 1984–1987, each episode consisting of eleven minutes. The series was aired in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Canada and Iran.

Plot

Cheep was an infant bird who fell from his nest, prior to learning to fly (the theme tune, "If only Cheep could fly", ensured that Cheep's difficulties in learning to fly became a recurring joke throughout the series). He befriends Orm, a worm who inhabits a subterranean home. Their acquaintances include

Snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gastro ...

and

Mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...

, all friends and foes have a single-word,

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...

name. Their notable foes include Rat and

Crow A crow is a bird of the genus ''Corvus'', or more broadly a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. Crows are generally black in colour. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not pinned scientifical ...

, who often scheme to consume the pair.

Episodes

Series 1

*The Fall (10.04.1984) *A Piece of Cake (17.04.1984) *Cat Nap (24.04.1984) *Down to Earth (01.05.1984) *Don't Sneeze Please (08.05.1984) *Eye, Eye! (15.05.1984) *Strawberry Patch (22.05.1984) *Cat and Mouse (29.05.1984) *A House for Mouse (05.06.1984) *What a Rat (12.06.1984) *Silvery Trail (19.06.1984) *Cheep Skate (26.06.1984) *The Search Party (03.07.1984)

Series 2

*Water, Water Everywhere (5.03.1987) *Spring Clean (12.03.1987) *Gone with the Wind (19.03.1987) *Buried Treasure (26.03.1987) *The Dark Wood (02.04.1987) *Sports Day (09.04.1987) *Ghosts (16.04.1987) *Falling Leaves (23.04.1987) *The Scarecrow (30.04.1987) *The Terrible Three (07.05.1987) *Cricket Tea (14.05.1987) *Rat Trap (21.05.1987) *Blow Out (28.05.1987)

Cast/Crew

First series *Creator - Tony Martin *Director - Jan Martin *Producer - Jan Martin *Executive Producer - David Hamilton *Artistic Director - Tony Martin *Puppet creator _ Mary Edwards *Writer - Guy Hallifax *Narrator - Richard Briers *Puppeteers - Mary Edwards, Geoff Felix and Ian Thom

Australian VHS releases

Roadshow Entertainment Roadshow Entertainment (formerly known as Roadshow Home Video from 1982–1993) is an Australian home video, production and distribution company that is a division of Village Roadshow (formerly Roadshow Home Video and Roadshow Entertainment) th ...

(2000)

DVD release

In 2019,

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (formerly Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Universal Studios Home Video, MCA/Universal Home Video, MCA Home Video, MCA Videodisc and MCA Videocassette, Inc.) is the home video distribution division of Am ...

(as

DreamWorks Classics Classic Media, LLC, doing business as DreamWorks Classics, is an American entertainment company owned by DreamWorks Animation, which is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures and a division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. It was founded as Classic Medi ...

) announced it would be releasing the entire first series on DVD ( Region 2,

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

format).

References

Jedi's Children's TV. Jedi. 10 Feb. 2005. 25 Feb. 200

/small> Toon Hound. Frazer Diamond. 11 Aug. 2006. 25 Feb. 200

/small> {{DEFAULTSORT:Orm And Cheep 1984 British television series debuts 1987 British television series endings 1980s British children's television series British preschool education television series British television shows featuring puppetry English-language television shows ITV children's television shows Television series by ITV Studios TVNZ 2 original programming