 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this articlebyadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Come Outside" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Come Outside | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Children's Educational Comedy |
| Created by | Elizabeth Bennett Ronald Smedley |
| Directed by | Elizabeth Bennett Peter Rose Barbara Roddam |
| Starring | Lynda Baron Pippin Mr. Higgins |
| Composer | Jonathan Cohen |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| No. of series | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 40(list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | Judy Whitfield Stacey Adams Anne Brogan |
| Producer | Elizabeth Bennett |
| Production location | Greater London & Buckinghamshire |
| Editors | David Austin Jon Bignold |
| Camera setup | Graham Latter Lee Pulbrook Jeremy Braben |
| Running time | 14 minutes |
| Production companies | Spelthorne Productions (Series 1) Tricorn Productions (Series 2–3) |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC Two |
| Release | 23 September 1993 (1993-09-23) – 18 March 1997 (1997-03-18) |
Come Outside is a British educational children's television series that ran from 23 September 1993 to 18 March 1997, presented by and starring Lynda Baron as Auntie Mabel and her dog 'Pippin'.
The series aims to encourage young children to learn about the world around them. The starting point for each programme is something with which children may already be familiar, such as: wood, paper, boots, spiders, buses, soap and lampposts.
The two main characters are Auntie Mabel (played by Lynda Baron), and her dog Pippin, who was initially played by a female dog also called Pippin and later by the dog's grandson Mr Higgins. A feature of Come Outside is Auntie Mabel's unusual mode of transport: a small aeroplane (aSlingsby T67 Firefly) with multi-coloured polka dots.
| Series | Start date | End date | Episodes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 23 September 1993 | 2 December 1993 | 11 |
| 2 | 22 September 1994 | 9 March 1995 | 19 |
| 3 | 7 January 1997 | 18 March 1997 | 10 |
Pippin was a mixed-breed dog, half Tibetan Terrier, half Bearded Collie, roughly third generation descended from the famous American acting dog Benji and was owned and trained by the award-winning animal trainer Ann Head. Pippin was quite old at the start of the first series in 1993 and so she performed the slower but more complex moves while her grandson, Mr. Higgins, performed any physically demanding actions.
Pippin retired at the end of Series 1 and Mr. Higgins took over the role of 'Pippin' entirely for Series 2 and 3. Mr. Higgins also starred as the Bakers dog for Bakers Complete pet food commercials and is still pictured on the products. He died in 2008 of old age while his grandmother, the original Pippin, died in the late 1990s.
Many other animals took part in Come Outside. Specially-shot footage included snails from London Zoo, frogs at Chester Zoo, geese at Folly Farm in Gloucestershire, rabbits at Tilgate Nature Centre in West Sussex, butterflies in the Butterfly Centre, Eastbourne, hedgehogs supplied by St. Tiggywinkles Animal Hospital and spiders from a private collection. In addition archive shots were provided by the BBC's Natural History Film Library in Bristol.
Elizabeth Bennett created the format and characters, wrote the scripts, directed many of the programmes and produced all three series.
Two different production companies were involved. Series 1 was made by Spelthorne Productions, which has since closed; Series 2 and 3 were made by Elizabeth Bennett's production company Tricorn Associates.
Aerial views of the various locations visited by Auntie Mabel were shot by Jeremy Braben.
Series 1 was set in a cottage on the corner of Denham Airfield in Buckinghamshire, and was used to provide the exterior shots of Auntie Mabel's house. She would come out of the house, walk through the back garden and on to the airfield to climb into her aeroplane (A 1989 Slingsby T67C Firefly registered G-RAFG). The interiors were shot at Capital Studios in Wandsworth, South West London. Chronologically, this series takes place after Series 2 & 3.
Series 2 was shot entirely on location, including the interiors of Auntie Mabel's house, with the exception of the bathroom in the Spiders episode which was shot in a studio. The cottage at Denham Airfield was occupied and so a new location had to be found. An empty cottage on some farmland in Harefield, Middlesex was rented. To allow for the change of location to be incorporated into the show's continuity, a programme about moving house was shot to link the two locations, which makes the first series the third chronologically. The plane (now a 1988 Slingsby T67C Firefly registered G-BOCM) was kept in a field nearby.
Series 3 was commissioned two years later and was also shot at the cottage in Harefield. A much older plane (A 1983 Slingsby T67M Firefly registered G-SFTZ) was used, now featuring a spiralled propeller
In every episode Mabel ventures outside and this involved shooting in many locations in the United Kingdom, such as a pencil factory in Keswick, the manufacture of Wellington boots in Dumfries, a pottery in Stoke, growing bulbs and attending the annual flower parade in Spalding, Lincolnshire and making brushes in Portsmouth.
Sometimes Auntie Mabel's adventures stayed closer to home. For example the episode "Buses", was filmed around the Ruislip area of North London. Scenes were also shot in Woodley, Berkshire, in the retail precinct and in the veterinary clinic.
In the episode "Marmalade" Auntie Mabel flies to Seville to visit an orange grove. Shooting was restricted to the one day on which the oranges were ready for harvesting. This was only known with very short notice and consequently arrangements to fly out were made at the last minute. It happened well outside the main production period by which time Lynda Baron was committed to other work and was not free to travel to Seville. To make it appear that Aunt Mabel had visited the orange grove, she was recorded in the studio against a Chroma key background while a body double was used for reverse angle shots of her in Spain.
Animation sequences for stories, songs and skits was done by Penny Holten, Touch Animation, Really Animated Pictures and Ealing Animation (occasionally).
The episode entitled Bricks won the Royal Television Society Educational Television Award 1997 in the Pre-school and Infants category.[2]
The BBC issued a collection on VHS tapes in the early 2000s, later released on DVD. The complete series is now available in a DVD box set. The BBC also released a collection of DVDs with booklets and notes not intended for home use but instead for use in schools and other educational purposes.
A selection of books were issued by the BBC in the mid 1990s based on the episodes.
