''The Adventures of Rupert Bear'' (''My Little Rupert'' in the US) was a

live-action Live action (or live-action) is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live-action with animation to create a live-action animated film. Live-action is used to define film, video ga ...

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 ...

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite television, satellite, or cable television, cable, excluding breaking news, television adverti ...

, based on the

Mary Tourtel Mary Tourtel (born Mary Caldwell on 28 January 187415 March 1948) was a British artist and creator of the comic strip Rupert Bear. Her works have sold 50 million copies internationally. Early life Mary Tourtel was born Mary Caldwell, 28 January ...

character

Rupert Bear Rupert Bear is a British children's comic strip character and franchise created by artist Mary Tourtel and first appearing in the ''Daily Express'' newspaper on 8 November 1920. Rupert's initial purpose was to win sales from the rival ''Da ...

, produced by ATV. It aired from 28 October 1970 to 24 August 1977 on the

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

network, with 156 11-minute episodes produced over four series. but would later enjoy regular repeat screenings until 1981

Production

The characters were all puppets, although the opening sequence featured a toy version of Rupert Bear sitting in a

child's bedroom. Rupert's friends and flying chariot appeared just as they had in the pages of the ''

Daily Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...

'', although he was joined by some new friends, including a sprite called Willy Wisp. One of the most-remembered elements of the series was the theme song, which was written by

Len Beadle Len Beadle (13 February 1932 – 1 June 2000) was an English Music publisher (popular music), music publisher, songwriter, music producer and performer, most famous for writing the theme to the hit children's TV show ''The Adventures of Rupert ...

and Ron Roker, sung by Jackie Lee, and reached No. 14 in the United Kingdom charts in 1971. The song includes the erroneous lyric "Rupert ''the'' Bear" (Rupert has never had the definite article in his name). The narrator of the stories was

Judy Bennett __NOTOC__ Judy Bennett (born 1943) is a English voice actor whose career in radio began with the long-running soap opera ''The Archers'', in which she has played the role of Shula Hebden-Lloyd since 1971. She played Shula's twin brother Kento ...

Archival status

Of the 156 episodes made, for many years only 75 were known to exist in their original colour film format, with a further 16 duplicated on black-and-white

16mm 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, educ ...

film. The remaining episodes were thought to be lost. On 21 April 2017, it was announced by the Network imprint that original film elements for all 156 episodes had been located, and were to be released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

in three volumes, with the first release comprising the earliest 52 episodes.

DVD release

In April 2017, Network announced it would be releasing the first 52 episodes from the first two 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). http://networkonair.com/exclusives/2626-adventures-of-rupert-bear-the-volume-1 The set was made available only directly through Network's website. A second volume containing the 52 episodes from series 3 was released soon afterward, again exclusive to the Network DVD website and in the same format. http://networkonair.com/exclusives/2686-adventures-of-rupert-bear-the-volume-2 Later, a third volume containing all 52 episodes from series 4 was released, once again exclusive to the Network DVD website and in the same format as the other volumes. http://networkonair.com/all-products/2715-adventures-of-rupert-bear-the-volume-3 All four series were later released as a complete set in October 2017, available from all major retailers.

References

External links

*
Little Gems - ''The Adventures of Rupert Bear''
stills

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adventures of Rupert Bear, The 1969 British television series debuts 1977 British television series endings 1960s British children's television series 1970s British children's television series ITV children's television shows Rupert Bear Television shows based on comic strips British television shows featuring puppetry Television series by ITC Entertainment Television series by ITV Studios Television series about bears