Hey Duggee


Hey Duggee is a British animated educational preschool television series aimed at 2 to 5 year olds. Created by Grant Orchard, it is produced by Studio AKA in association with BBC Studios.
The programme is based around The Squirrel Club, an activity club for children. The children take part in all kinds of activities, have adventures and earn badges for their accomplishments.
Hey Duggee is airing its third series. It was first shown in December 2014. BBC and Studio AKA produced a second series in early 2016, with the first episode airing in the United Kingdom on 26 September 2016. A third series was commissioned in October 2017, with the first episode due to be broadcast in Autumn 2018, but was pushed back to 4 March 2019.

Production

The programme is animated using the computer program Flash, with a minimalist style using filled shapes with no outlines, and only effects that Flash is capable of, and only the Duggee character uses any gradients. The frog character is a plain green triangle.
The production team consists of around 16 in-house animators, with six to eight scriptwriters.

Format

Every episode starts by showing what one of the Squirrels is doing at their houses. They are interrupted by the Narrator saying ", isn't it time for...?", to which they gasp and shout "DUGGEE!". During the opening theme, they run out of their house to travel to the clubhouse with their parents in vehicles. Duggee exits the clubhouse with his signature "Woof" and does a little dance, and the other characters from the show can be briefly seen. The Squirrels hug their parents, run to Duggee, and the series' logo is shown. This is followed by the title card, which is an image of the badge that the Squirrels will earn this episode.
Usually each story will start with the Narrator saying "Hello Squirrels! I wonder what Duggee has planned for you today?", at which point the Squirrels will go and find out, calling out "Hey Duggee! Whatcha doing?" The ensuing activity will inevitable be connected to the episode's badge, often introduced by the Narrator saying "Duggee even has his badge!" while Duggee points at his shirt and we see a close up of the badge.
In each episode, a situation will present itself that can be solved by learning a new skill. When the skill has been learned, and the situation resolved, the Squirrels receive one of Duggee's badges. After their parents have arrived to pick the students up, the narrator states "Just time for one more thing...". Each episode ends with a Duggee Hug, where all the Squirrels hug Duggee at once and chorus "Duggee Hug". Then the Squirrels return to their parents with the badge they have earned.
The final scene of each episode has the Narrator saying "Well, that was fun, wasn't it, Duggee?" This is followed by something amusing or strange happening that is related to the events of the episode. If it is something that makes Duggee laugh, the Narrator might also laugh and say "Oh, do stop it Duggee". The end credits roll which usually features Duggee sleeping in his kennel, only to be woken up by the Squirrels yelling, "Hey Duggee!" at the end of the ending theme.

Characters

Main

as
Phillip Warner as
Grant Orchard as
Adam Longworth as
Lucy Montgomery as
Morgana Robinson as
Other characters

Broadcast

The series made its British television debut when the episode "The Tinsel Badge" was aired in advance on 17 December 2014 as a Christmas special on CBeebies. Its regular run began on 12 January 2015, when the first episode, "The Drawing Badge", was shown.
Internationally, the series is distributed by BBC Worldwide, a commercial arm of the BBC which also operates the versions of CBeebies channel in select areas outside the UK.
A deal announced on 23 February 2015 by BBC Worldwide for the series include RTÉ in the Republic of Ireland, France Télévisions in France, YLE in Finland, NRK in Norway, SVT in Sweden, and RÚV in Iceland. This is narrated by former Norwegian footballer and game show host Jonny Hansen.
In Italy, The series premiered on 6 June 2016 on Cartoonito.
In the United States, The series premiered on 11 July 2016 on Nick Jr. with the first episode The Drawing Badge.
In Latvia, LTV1 premiered the series on 2 September 2017 with a second series. On 15 October through 4 November 12 episodes were announced including a Halloween special in the UK and most countries.
On 1 April 2020, a short film about the Stay at Home badge was released on CBeebies, aired during trailer breaks in CBeebies programming, to spread the message of staying housebound during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Home media and online viewing

In the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, BBC Worldwide so far released two volumes of DVDs, each containing ten episodes. All of the episodes have now been made available through iTunes and Netflix, with a number of episodes also free on Amazon Prime.
On 20 February 2019, the first series was made available or streaming on Nickelodeon's NOGGIN streaming video service in the USA.

Adaptations

In the UK, the BBC Children's Books imprint published books based on the series.

Merchandise and other licenses

manufactures Hey Duggee toys sold in the UK.
As of May 2015, Jasnor holds the master toy license in Australia and New Zealand.

"Stick Song"

The "Stick Song" premiered in the series 2 episode, Hey Duggee: The Stick Badge, which was first broadcast in the UK on 7 December 2017. Duggee and the Squirrels are making a campfire when Roly discovers one of his sticks can talk. The talking stick begins to chant the word "stick!" repeatedly. The chant is set to dance music and the stick sings and dances to the beat.
To date, the "Stick Song" has been viewed more than 3.5 million times on YouTube. The track has been featured on BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Newsnight. There is a heavy metal cover version and a special version of the song was done for the 2018 FIFA World Cup called "Kick! Kick! Kick! ".
There are many versions of this song done, making it the show's ultimate internet meme. Several examples of this include the following:

Series overview

Series 1 (2014–2015)

Series 2 (2016–2018)

Series 3 (2019–2020)

Reception

Stuart Heritage, writing in The Guardian, described the series as being "peerless." Elements of the London Fire Brigade complained on social media about "The Dressing-Up Badge". In the episode, Roly dresses up as a firefighter, but is described as being a fireman, which the LFB described as being "outdated" and the term "‘Firefighter’ is the preferred respectful, inclusive, non-sexist, non-gendered term that should be being widely used by all media but especially the BBC.

Awards and nominations

Apps & Games

In 2015, Hey Duggee was adapted into several videogame apps for mobile devices. To date, eight of these have existed.
These include: