Tots TV


Tots TV is a British children's television programme, produced by Ragdoll Productions and Central.

Characters

The programme features three ragdoll friends: Tilly, a French girl, with red hair and white skin, who speaks in basic French, Tom, a blue-haired boy with dark skin and glasses, and Tiny, the youngest Tot, who is smaller than the others and has green hair and white skin. It also featured their pet Donkey who lived in a stable next to the tots' secret house and a mischievous little dog named Furryboo that the tots never knew about.

Broadcast

Tots TV was written by two of its puppeteers, Robin Stevens and Andrew Davenport. Tilly was played by three actresses – initially Véronique Deroulede, then Claire Carre and Alexandra Hogg. The series won two BAFTA awards for its producer Anne Wood and director Vic Finch. Originally broadcast in the UK on the ITV network, CBeebies, the BBC's television channel for young children, picked up the series from 2004, where it first aired on the BBC Two block as well as the CBeebies channel, on the 19 April.
The show was also broadcast in the United States on the PBS network from 1996 to 2002 with Tilly speaking Spanish, instead of French. In 2000 Discovery Kids broadcast the series throughout Central and South America, the Caribbean and the Falkland Islands.

Specials

A number of special episodes of the series were produced for both television and VHS release, including a short series of episodes set in the United States of America, a 'Big Treasure Adventure' set on a pirate ship and several Christmas specials, including one filmed in Rovaniemi, Finland.
A series of educational Tots Video specials released by VCI in 1997 included hour-long episodes based on the alphabet, numbers, animals and basic French.

VHS

VHS releases

In 1997, four special VHS tapes were released under the name Tots Video. The four titles were re-released by Carlton Video in 2000 with the same titles. The four titles were: