- For the character, see Pat Clifton.
- For other uses, see Postman Pat (disambiguation).
Postman Pat (known as Postman Pat and his Black and White Cat in Series 2, and later called Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service) is a British stop-motion animated television series first produced by Woodland Animations Ltd. It follows the adventures of Pat Clifton, a postman who works for Royal Mail postal service in the fictional village of Greendale (inspired by the real valley of Longsleddale near Kendal).
Two series were made for the show, which include the original series and Special Delivery Service.
About
Postman Pat revolves around the adventures of the local postman Pat Clifton in the village of Greendale as drives around on his post rounds. Later in the series he is promoted to the Special Delivery Service in the neighbouring seaside town of Pencaster and delivers very special parcels in a how range of different vehicles.
History
In 1978, John Cunliffe was alone in his home in the Lake District, as his only child, Edward was at a boarding school near Kendal, and his wife Sylvia (nee Thompson) was a mature university student. Cunliffe was very fed up, and so he sat down in the back bedroom of his home, and used his old black Triumph typewriter to create a new world, that would be more comforting, and it would include a postman named Pat.
With that, Cunliffe created a village called Greendale, which included many other characters and locations, with most of them being based of real people or real locations he had known in his life. His wife's mother would be the inspiration for the character Dorothy Thompson at Greendale Farm. Greendale Post Office was based on the cosy Beast Banks post office in Kendal near to where Cunliffe lived and visited to see how things worked there to get ideas for his stories.[1] This office was a vital part of Cunliffe's research, particularly for the character Mrs. Goggins. The post office closed in 2003, though visitors to the Lake District can see a commemorative plaque for Postman Pat along with the original post box outside the property on Greenside, Kendal.[2] Many of the character names and ideas he used came from the Westmorland phone book.
At the time, Cunliffe had been working as a primary school teacher at Castle Park School, and he told the stories of Postman Pat to his class during his time living and teaching in the South Lakeland town of Kendal.
Eventually, the BBC were thinking up an idea for a television series set in the countryside. John Cunliffe was told about the project by the parent of one of his students who suggested that he should send some of the stories that he had been writing for children to the project leader as they were looking for writers.
Later on, John met up with Cynthia Felgate in London who asked him to be the writer for project. John then suggested that the leading character could be the local postman, which Cynthia liked straight away.
John Cunliffe has stated that Pat is based on the postmen of Kendal; there was small post office at the end of John's street and he became a close friend of the post office shop keeper, who told him the daily work that country postmen do, which later helped to form Postman Pat's character.
The BBC approached animator Ivor Wood about this concept and he liked the stories when the BBC showed him Cunliffe's stories. He decided to produce Postman Pat instead of merely directing and animating that he did for FilmFair Animations. He created the designs of the characters and Greendale, as well as making all the puppets himself as well as the visuals, and produced the programme.
Ivor visited Cunliffe in the Lake District and toured the hills, soaking up locations and shooting off a roll of pictures of one particularly amiable postman whom they found up a lonely valley running errands for his customers.
From the 1980s to the 1990s the series was animated by Woodland Studios which was ironically known for animating other television shows like The Wombles and Paddington.
In the first series, all the voices were done by Ken Barrie as well as singing all the songs. After the educational special Postman Pat's 123, Carole Boyd joined the team to mainly play the child and adult female characters while Ken continued to play Granny Dryden and the male adults.
Since 2003, the series was animated by Cosgrove Hall which is know for the creation of shows like Dangermouse, The Wind in the Willows and Noddy's Toyland Adventures. At this point the narrator was dropped and a full voice cast was introduced. New voice overs stepped in to play new characters and to take over the roles of the child characters from Carol Boyd. Ken Barrie and Carol Boyd stayed on to voice the returning adult villagers. This new series also saw the start of a full writing team, in contrast to all the episodes being written by John Cunliffe.
Since 2008, Pat moved into a new frontier known as Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service when he delivers very unusual parcel sent into the sorting office in Pencaster in a selection of different vehicles other than just his normal Royal Mail van. At this point, while Ken Barrie still voiced most of the same characters he had voiced in the past, Lewis MacLeod who voiced the shows newst character Ben Taylor also took over the role of Pat. In the next season of 2013, Ken Barrie left the cast all together; Lew MacLeod and new cast members, Bradley Clarkson and Dan Milne took over his roles.
In 2009, Pat's cat Jess got his own spin-off series aimed at pre-schoolers, Guess with Jess. In this same year Specsavers Optical Group Ltd. used Postman Pat in one of its TV advertisments, featuring the current voice cast at the time. Pat and various other characters from the series also appeared in Peter Kay's Animated All Star Band for Children in Need.
In 2011, as the Postman Pat celebrated its 30th birthday, the BBC announced that the famous postman was to be coming to motion picture screen. Postman Pat the Movie was finally released in 2014.
In 2013, the television series moved into a new animation studio. Mackinnnon and Saunders Ltd. which animated shows like Pingu, Rastamouse and Toby's Traveling Circus and the films Fantastic Mr. Fox and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride also took over the filming process of Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service. The company had also only been previously responsible for manufacturing the puppets from Series 3 onwards.
Series
- Series 1 (1981)
- Series 2 (subtitled Postman Pat and his Black and White Cat) (1996)
- Series 3 (2004)
- Series 4 (2005)
- Series 5 (2006)
- Series 6 (subtitled Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service) (2008)
- Series 7 (subtitled Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service) (2013)
- Series 8 (subtitled Postman Pat: Special Delivery Service) (2016-17)
Specials and Movies
- Postman Pat's ABC (1990)
- Postman Pat's 123 (1990)
- Postman Pat Takes the Bus (1991)
- Postman Pat and the Toy Soldiers (1992)
- Postman Pat and the Tuba (1994)
- Postman Pat and the Barometer (1994)
- Read Along with Postman Pat (1994)
- Postman Pat and the Greendale Rocket (2003)
- Postman Pat's Magic Christmas (2003)
- Postman Pat Clowns Around (2004)
- Postman Pat's Pirate Treasure (2004)
- Postman Pat's Great Big Party (2005)
- Postman Pat: The Movie (2014)
Trivia
- In 2005, the series ranked 23rd in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Kid's TV Shows vote.
- In the Radio Times' poll for the most favourited children's programme at the BBC in 2014, the series won the most votes for the best programme of the 1980's. It was also voted the second most popular show in the all time top 3 of the same poll, just below "Shaun the Sheep", the winner of the 2000's category.
- The show's logo has used two font types, 'Churchward Design Bold' and 'Blippo'. However, they have varied in use across the years:
- Churchward Design logo
- Series 1 opening titles (first version)
- 'Pat Takes the Bus' special
- 2003-2008 television veries logo
- 2008-2017 'Special Delivery Service' logo variant
- Blippo
- Series 1 opening titles (second version)
- 2014 theatrical CGI-animated film logo.
- Churchward Design logo