The Moomins (TV series)


The Moomins is a stop motion animated children's television series based on the Tove Jansson's Moomin series of books which was produced by Se-ma-for and Jupiter Film between 1977 and 1982 for Polish, Austrian and German television. The series was later sold to other countries including the UK. The British version was adapted by Anne Wood at FilmFair and broadcast in the UK. Series 1 was first shown on Monday 24 January 1983 at 4:15 pm and series 2 on Monday 7 January 1985 at 4.15pm on Children's ITV, and series 2 was repeated in 1986. The series was last repeated in its entirety in 1988. It was narrated by British actor Richard Murdoch.
This series was the third series to be made based on the Moomin books. Two more were subsequently made. It is one of the two best-known Moomin series. The 1977–1982 stop-motion version has been criticised for being scary in places and rather dark in tone for the young audience at which it was aimed. It is, in contrast to the 1990s series, widely believed to be the most faithful TV adaptation of Tove Jansson's stories, and much closer to her vision. Tove herself had a great deal of involvement during the series' production and was very happy with it. The scripts for each episode were translated from Polish into Swedish and sent to Tove and Lars Jansson, who, if they felt that anything needed to be changed, corrected the script, expanding or rewriting it; afterwards, the scripts were sent back and only then did production of the particular episode begin.
The opening titles featured a bouncy theme tune consisting of flutes and synthesizers composed by Graeme Miller and Steve Shill, and a popular still of Moomintroll holding a hat.
In 2010, an HD version of the series was released. It was later followed by a new US-produced English dub in 2017.

Episode list

The UK adaptation consisted of 100 five-minute episodes.
Series 1 consisting of 50 episodes was first broadcast Mondays to Fridays at 4:15 pm, 24 January to 1 April 1983 on Children's ITV. Series 2 consisting of another 50 episodes first aired Monday to Fridays at 4:15 pm, 7 January to 15 March 1985 on Children's ITV.

Series one

Series two

The order above is the correct broadcast order, for when the episodes were first shown on UK television in 1983. The episode order in the recent DVD boxset was changed, so that the English episodes were intended to match the German broadcast order. In the UK, the series ended with the Comet in Moominland story. Series 1 was shown in 1983 and series 2 in 1985. Series 2 was repeated in 1986. The series was also repeated in its entirety in 1988..

Impact and critical reaction

In 2008 the series was listed at number 25 in a list of top 50 children's TV by The Times. Excerpts from the series have been shown at film festivals in the UK and Japan.

DVD release

A Region 2 DVD boxset was released in 2004, in both English and German editions.
Single DVD releases are also available, which contain English and German episodes. The German episodes have English subtitles and the English episodes have German subtitles.

Films