Fimbles

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Fimbles
Format	Children's
Starring	Aidan Cook, Samantha Dodd, Wayne Forester, Leah Green, Kate Harbour, Tamsin Heatley, Matthew Lyons, Garry Rutter, Shelly Longworth, John Tobias
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Language(s)	English
Production
Executive producer(s)	Clare Elstow Mike Watts
Producer(s)	Helen Sheppard
Running time	20 minutes approx.
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC One, BBC Two
Audio format	Stereo
External links
CBeebies - Fimbles Official website
IMDb profile

Fimbles is a British television programme designed for pre-school children. The Fimbles are Fimbo, Florrie and Baby Pom, who all live in a bright, lush and colourful place called Fimble Valley. Fimbles is produced by Novel Entertainment who created the characters.

The snouted and concentrically ringed appearance of the Fimbles was based on the eponymous villains of Lucy Anna and the Finders, written and illustrated by Sarah Hayes. Although Hayes is cited in the credits of Fimbles, and she was involved in adapting the characters for the television series, the implacably omnivorous Finders have nothing else in common with the Fimbles. In fact because the two variaions of the characters were incomaptable with one another, all unsold copies of Lucy Anna and the Finders were pulped.^[1]

The scripts of the 200 episodes were written by a number of writers, most notably the programme's producer Lucinda Whiteley. The Fimbles are cuddly, hippo like creatures and are portrayed by 'skin' actors in complex, fluffy animatronic suits and all look quite similar apart from their colour and size. Fimbo is yellow with green stripes, is the tallest and likes to eat Crimble Crackers, Florrie is blue with purple stripes, a little smaller than Fimbo and is often seen carrying a Fimble-like doll called Little One, and Baby Pom is the smallest, pink with green stripes and generally follows the others like a toddler, whilst pushing her Trundle Truck. Other characters, which are essentially large scale puppets, are a blue tree frog called Rockit (sic), a purple and green striped mole called Roly Mo, a plump and motherly pink bird called Bessie, and Bessie's chick, Ribble. Originally Ribble was an almost featureless squeaking blob of orange fur with a beak; more recently he has also had eyes.

The three Fimbles have a special "sixth sense" - when the Tinkling Tree tinkles its bell-like blossoms, it makes the nose, fingers and topknot of one or more Fimbles twitch as they get the 'Fimbling Feeling'. This tells the character(s) that they are going to find something. It may be a natural phenomenon - a patch of sunlight for example, an everyday object, e.g. a tambourine, or something which would be totally inexplicable in the real world, such as a puddle of blue "goo". Whatever is found becomes the catalyst for the episode's adventures and the trigger for the Fimbles' creative play.

Roly Mo, who has a vast underground library of books, tells a story in every episode, and either Roly Mo or Bessie give a summary at the end of the programme as to what has happened to the Fimbles that day. Live action film of real children at play also features in every episode.

There is a spin-off to Fimbles called The Roly Mo Show, starring Roly Mo and a cast of other characters including Roly's niece Little Bo. The Roly Mo Show concentrates on literacy and books and is made as an educational programme. Also devised by Novel Entertainment the programme plays daily on the CBeebies channel. The Fimbles also feature in a touring stage show for children, called Fimbles Live! which was devised by the playwright and author David Wood CBE.

[edit] Fimbles in China

As of June 1st, 2007 Fimbles (粉宝乐园) is being broadcast in China on Shanghai Media Group's children's network HAHA TV. All 200 episodes are being shown sequentially and dubbed in Mandarin Chinese. As the show in its original format is only 19 minutes long, the show has been lengthened by 5 minutes for the Chinese market.