ZZZap!


Zzzap is a British children's television comedy programme. The concept of the show is a giant 18 ft comic that has been brought to life. The show was broadcast on ITV from 8 January 1993 until 21 September 2001 and was produced for ten series by The Media Merchants and Meridian Broadcasting.

Format

The programme follows the same format throughout its run. A title intro is shown consisting of a couple of short clips for each character from the series. It is then followed by a series of short two- or three-minute-long segments, followed by the credits. Each segment is introduced by the camera zooming in on a corresponding panel on a giant comic, shot in reverse and then played in reverse. This giant comic has a set of nine frames on it, some of which contain a character representing their segments. The show was designed with deaf children in mind, and so the style of the show is predominantly visual, with the sound only providing music and effects. The audience in "The Handymen" segments would also often sign clapping instead of actually clapping.
The introduction to Series 1 was filmed in Chequers Shopping Centre in Maidstone showing a boy buying a copy of a comic called "ZZZap!" from a newsagent. The comic contains a 'Free TV Zapper!' which he uses only to find that the comic has increased to an enormous 18 ft size. This introduction was abandoned from series 2 onwards, which instead showed the giant comic and then introduced each of the characters with a short video. Some computer generated additions were made in series 8, and for series 10 the whole sequence including the giant comic was computer-animated. The closing titles also changed between series.

Episodes

Syndication

The series was more recently broadcast on the CITV channel in 2006, 2007 and 2009. There were plans to broadcast the programme as part of CITV's 30th anniversary in January 2013, but this did not go ahead due to licensing issues.
The Smart Arty elements and The Handymen were repeated in the USA and Canada as part of It's Itsy Bitsy Time on Fox Family and Treehouse TV, respectively, with Smart Arty being renamed to 'Art to Art with Arty Art'. The segments ran from 1999 until 2001.
ZZZap! was also screened on TVOntario in Canada in its original format, alongside the runs on It's Itsy Bitsy Time.
The series was also broadcast on the local military forces television networks BFBS and SSVC Television as part of their children's programming blocks Children's SSVC and Room 785. The network was shown on television transmissions in Germany, West Germany, Belize, the Republic of Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Falkland Islands and Gibraltar.

Cast

Main

Recurring

Media releases

The series mainly used Library music for most of the background music. The theme tune is Keystone Chaos, composed by Ron Aspery, from the KPM library. The background music used in the majority of The Handymen sketches is Memories of the Music Hall, composed by Roger Webb, from the De Wolfe Music Library.
Tracks used for Daisy Dares You
Tracks used from the Music House Library CD's for Cuthbert Lilly's tracks
Tracks used from the Parry Music Library for Cuthbert Lilly's tracks
Tracks used from The London Theatre Orchestra for Cuthbert Lilly's tracks
Tracks used from the Carlin Library CD's for Cuthbert Lilly's tracks
Tracks used from the Sonoton Library CD's for Cuthbert Lilly's tracks
Tracks used from the De Wolfe Music Library for Cuthbert Lilly's tracks
Tracks used from FirstCom Music for Cuthbert Lilly's tracks
The track commonly used for the Question Mark/Dot-to-Dot/Eye Segments etc
Tracks used from Memories Of The Music Hall for The Handymen came from:
Other tracks used for The Handymen came from:
Tracks used for Tricky Dicky come from:
Tracks used for Minnie The Mini Magician:
Smart Arty's sketches were accompanied by Classical String Quartets : "Boccherini-Minuet No. 5 In E Major" by Luigi Boccherini
Tracks used for the Zzzap Summer Specials and Christmas Annuals: