Impossible Kids starts production on Buzz & Tell

June 14, 2010

Impossible Kids, the children’s television arm of Impossible Pictures (Primeval, Walking With Dinosaurs), has commenced production on its new pre-school show, Buzz & Tell, for CBeebies, the BBC’s award-winning pre-school channel in the UK and BBC Worldwide’s international CBeebies channels.

Described by Jon Doyle, the show’s creator and co-founder of Impossible Kids, as “a pre-school University Challenge with glove puppets,” Buzz & Tell (52×5’) is a madcap quiz show featuring a walrus, called Walter Flipstick, as the host and a cavalcade of contestants, including a mouse called Charles Cheese and an orangutan called Orange Bernard, who try desperately hard – but not always successfully – to answer the questions. No matter, because where the contestants flounder, the kids watching at home will be joining in heartily and shouting out the answers at the screen.

“We wanted to create a very funny and active show for pre-school viewers and realised that the quiz show format with its inherent audience participation would be perfect for the targeted age range,” says Doyle. “We’ve created ten wonderfully silly puppet characters and a quiz show host who will be filmed in a computer generated studio with all the lights, music and buzzes you’d associate with quiz shows through the years. The accent is on fun and giving children the chance to shout out the right answers.”

Adds Doyle, with tongue firmly in cheek: “With the extraordinary technology of movies like ‘Avatar’ at our disposal it seemed ridiculous not to implement it here. Amazingly our glove puppets actually look and move like real glove puppets!”

Buzz & Tell will transmit later this year on CBeebies. BBC Worldwide also has global distribution rights to the show.

Buzz & Tell is Impossible Kids’ first production from its new development slate which, with its broad mix of animation and live action children’s output, is garnering significant interest in the UK and abroad. Deals are currently being put together to produce several of the new shows, following successful negotiations at the Kidscreen and MipTV markets.

Vision+Media supported Firestep Limited, to aid the company development of Buzz & Tell, through its Regional Attraction Fund (RAF), delivered in partnership with the Northwest Development Agency.

Jonathan Drake, Managing Director of Impossible Pictures, says: “We have an amazingly talented and respected team at Impossible Kids and, having made significant investment in development over the last year, we are now in the market place with some astonishingly good projects for kids of all ages.  I’m delighted that we can unleash Buzz & Tell on audiences across the world as our first Impossible Kids production”.

For further information on Buzz & Tell please contact:

Jonathan Drake:  0207 636 4401
Karl Woolley:  07976 407 914
Jon Doyle:  0161 237 9413

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Editor’s Notes

Impossible Kids is the children’s trading name of Firestep Limited, the Manchester-based company founded by director/producers, Jon Doyle and Steve Maher and acquired by Impossible Pictures in 2007. Firestep continues to deveop animated projects for mainstream factual, documentary and drama genres as well as children’s.

Impossible Pictures is a multi award-winning independent production company led by Tim Haines, the creator of Walking with Dinosaurs.

Specialising in drama, factual and children’s shows, Impossible Pictures has built up a reputation for bringing CGI and high end effects to the small screen and delivering spectacular productions to major broadcasters worldwide.

Recent productions include Primeval 3 for ITV and ProSieben and Blitz Street for Channel 4.  Series 4 & 5 of Primeval is currently being filmed in Dublin and production id underway on their children’s property Buzz & Tell.

Whatever the subject matter Impossible Pictures’s stamp is an ambitious approach.

The Impossible Pictures group of companies includes Firestep Limited and 360 Production. For more information visit www.impossiblepictures.co.uk