The Animals of Farthing Wood

1993

Seasons & Episodes

  • 3
  • 2
  • 1
  • 0
8.3| 0h30m| TV-Y7| en| More Info
Released: 06 January 1993 Ended
Producted By:
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

The Animals of Farthing Wood is an animated series created by the European Broadcasting Union between 1992 and 1995 and based on the series of books written by Colin Dann. It was produced by Telemagination, based in London, and La Fabrique, based in Montpellier in France, but also aired in other European countries. The first countries to air the series were Germany and the United Kingdom, in January 1993.

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Reviews

NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!
ShangLuda Admirable film.
Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.
TheLittleSongbird I remembered loving (and being disturbed as well) "The Animals of Farthing Wood" as a kid. At 17, I still love it, it is truly a great show for kids and adults that teaches very good life lessons without preaching. I for one liked the animation style, the look of it reminded me of "Watership Down" which is one of my favourite films. The backgrounds are nice and evergreen, the colours are beautiful and the character features were excellent. The music was amazing, I have always loved the main theme. The characters are endearing and all had unique personalities, particularly Fox, Weasel, Toad and Adder, and the story lines are gripping, intelligent and well done. The voice acting is impressive too, Rupert Farley, Susan Jefferson and Ron Moody all do a stellar job. Is there a drawback? Maybe a small one, the third series wasn't as compelling as the first two series, but it was watchable and ended more than decently. All in all, this is a great show, maybe with one or two minor discrepancies but it is definitely worth the look and I recommend it strongly. 10/10 Bethany Cox
VoidWarren There are a lot of good things about this series. In many ways it's a throwback to the old days of British animation, and certainly stands out against the background of most of today's modern American cartoons. This is not always a strength, however.The backgrounds and animation are disappointing; in particular the backgrounds often appear faded and washed-out, drawing unfavourable comparisons with the highly-detailed landscapes used in other nature cartoons, like Watership Down. The animation frequently produces problems with scale, the sizes of some animals varying even within scenes, and while the character design is mostly excellent there are too many instances of motion looping: the same pieces of animation getting used again and again.The voice acting is inconsistent, and the series clearly suffers from being unable to hire more than a few voice actors. The problem with having several characters voiced by one actor is that , more often than not, the actor will have to go to extremes of accent or pitch in order to produce voices that sound different, and as a result many of the supporting characters sound so irritating it's hard to sympathise with them. Having said that, the main characters are quite well done, and in particular the second-series' villains Scarface and Lady Blue are invested with suitable malevolence.So why is Farthing Wood a good cartoon, despite its problems? Perhaps its greatest achievement is to take a very mediocre series of novels, distill the best elements from them and use that as a starting point to develop stories and characters. Often the first thing discarded in the transition from page to TV is violence, but Farthing Wood deserves credit for retaining much of the book' realism; characters are killed off like it's open season in the safari, and the series doesn't shy away from depicting copious amounts of blood.Sad, thrilling and ultimately uplifting, Farthing Wood is a relic of the days when children felt more connected with nature and the Great Outdoors, and although a small budget limited its excellence, very likely it will be the last great British nature cartoon.
XxXPETEXxX As a child I was used to watching such programs as Postman Pat but this was different, it depicted reality and truthfulness through being scary and emotional unlike the vast majority of programs.As a general comment it's fair to say that AOFW rocked, but like any book-to-television program there were changes, like the sex of some animals. There are three series of this, the first one is the journey to White Deer Park and the second and third are at WDP.Like many other people said the first series was probably the best having me on tender hooks. We meet all the animals, and what an unforgettable bunch they are. We had Fox being courageous as the leader and Badger as his faithful 'right hand man'. Owl as the wise one, Kestrel as the scout of the group, Rabbits as the clumsy ones, Hares as the more selfish creatures, Weasel who provided the humour and many more. Along the way we met Vixen and Whistler. Series one saw the deaths of the Newts, Pheasants, baby Mice and a Rabbit, which as a child was quite frightening. But the saddest moment of the series was the Hedgehogs getting run over - makes me well up. At the end they eventually arrive at White Deer Park.Series Two showed how they struggled to fit in at WDP and the new dangers that faced them i.e. Scarface, the dangers of winter and what Spring has to bring. The covered topical issues in S2 i.e. hunting, racism (red/blue foxes). The Charmer/Ranger storyline as the Montague/Capulets worked very well. Scarface was the main threat of S2 - killing Mrs Vole, Mrs Hare and Mrs Rabbit as well as one of Fox's cubs - Dreamer. The series ended with Adder killing Scarface - ending his reign of terror. S2 also followed the story of Fox Cub Bold who, after arguing with Fox, left the Park. We followed his amazing journey and how he was struggling and eventually returning to the Park with his mate - who was carrying his cubs - to die after making peace with his Dad. S2 also saw the death of Mole and the arrival of his son. The saddest moment of S2 was Badger dying as he represented the oath of mutual protection. His last scenes were the most heart wrenching one can watch.Series 3 as people have said was the worst. There was some happiness as Adder found a mate. The series began with Weasel and Owl - original FW characters leaving the park to go start a family. In my opinion, this was a bad idea as too much of the story was set outside WDP. It also saw the death of the Great White Stag and the takeover of Trey - an ignorant Deer. Many characters disappeared between the last two series - Kestrel, Friendly, Hare, Speedy. I didn't like this as Kestrel and Hare were my personal favourite characters. S3 saw the takeover of Rats in the park, which was a weak storyline and wasn't very climatic. Several friendships joined in the series - Plucky/Dash, Spike/Toad - which was nice to see as the original friendships from S1 - Owl/Adder, Weasel/Badger, Mole/Badger, Rabbit/Hare - had now been split up. The arrival and death of Sinous (Adder's Mate) showed us a different side to the snake. We saw Weasel give birth to Cleo and Fido - which provided lots of humour and we saw Owl meet a mate (Hollow) before being encased in cement and freed before returning to WDP. The rats eventually left and Fox declared that Plucky will be the new leader of the AOFW. The end had a montage of the journey to White Deer Park, which was sad to watch. Highlights included Owl going death and talking to Mrs Vole, Rabbit's hiccups, Badger dying, Hare/Rabbits scenes, drunk Weasel, Kestrel being 'so very embarrassed' and pretty much most the series.All in all, a fantastic series, just a shame kids nowadays don't have the opportunity to watch things like this.
Zeuss101 The Animals of Farthing Wood is an animated children's series following the journey of a group of animals as they leave their original habitat due to it being destroyed by man, and travel to the safety of a nature reserve. Three series' of the show were produced, the first showing the journey, and the latter two focusing on the animals lives after arriving in White Deer Park.Rather than using comedy and humour to attract the attention of it's audience, AoFW uses its strong storyline and characters, the two things for which the show is best remembered and still far above any children's show even today.During the series multiple main characters are killed off, often in violent ways, and because they were so well written and voiced, the deaths were even more emotional. Anyone I talk to about this show today remembers the moment the Hedgehogs were run over even if they can't recall anything else, and remember it as something which when they watched as a small child made them cry a lot.I applaud the storyline for being as realistic as possible and not hiding the grim realities of nature, like so many other kids shows. Animals of Farthing Wood taught children about the difficulties faced by animals in their struggle to survive, such as the numerous threats posed by man and nature, two things which claimed many lives across the series. Even the basic premise of the show was a result of mankind destroying the animals home.This is probably why this show is so well remembered and popular today, because it told it like it is and had a brilliant narrative, actually teaching children something important about animal cruelty and nature. I can only guess at the number of children who watched this or read the book and were deeply affected by it, but I know I was one of them.I liked the first series the most. The great journey to White Deer Park was the most varied and entertaining, and the part of the show which most people remember. Series 2 was also good, but it tried to include too many characters, and so some of the originals such as Mole ended up getting neglected. Series 3, with it's different animation style, weaker story, and only a handful of original cast was the worst of the 3, however was still watchable, and ended well.I hope some day this is released on DVD and constantly re-run on TV, as children today should have the privilege of seeing this pure classic, and experiencing the happiness and sorrow that came with it, as I and so many others did. No other children's show has this much emotional and cognitive impact.

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