Petals was an Australian children's animated television programme produced and created by Mark Barnard and aired on the ABC. It ran from 1998 to 1999 consisting a total of one season and 30 episodes and was aimed at pre-school children aged 2–6. After it ended in 1999, the series was still continued to be repeated on the ABC and ABC1 until 23 January 2004.
Plot
The series revolves around five small petals who live in a large, overgrown garden. Bougie, Boronia, Poppy, Notsy and Imp greet each day in wide-eyed wonder as their explorations among the giant flowers and trees uncover surprises and delights. However the Petals are just small little people that you can't see but you can imagine them. They're also not fairies and don't have magical powers, but they're very athletic and only Bougie and Poppy are able to fly. Here they discover many surprises, delights and adventures such as helping a baby bird, picking berries, helping Imp turn a dripping tap off, playing a game of hide and seek, making bubbles with some soap, Imp rescuing Notsy with fireflies when she got lost, using a broken mirror to frighten Jeffrey and putting on a show to cheer up Worm when he had a kink in his tail. Joining them in their adventures were five other characters who were all insects. They were Cicada, Ant, Spider, Worm and Ladybird. There's also an orange playful cat named Jeffrey who likes to hang around in the garden and cause trouble for the Petals.
Characters
Petals
Bougie
Boronia
Imp
Poppy
Notsy
Animals and Insects
Cicada
Ant
Spider
Worm
Jeffrey
Episode list
Series 1
A Boot Full of Petals
Getting Dirty
The Great Race
The Baby Bird
The Dripping Tap
Firefly Rescue
Poppy's Picnic
Hide and Seek
Car on the Hill
Notsy's Knot
Mr Exciting
Sticky Scary Thing
The Jeffrey Free Zone
Notsy's Trail
Berry Hunters
A Turn for Worm
Loop the Loop
The Flying Imp
Snow
Water Works
Broken Mirror
Autumn
Windy Weather
Cry Wolf
Sea-Slide
Rainy Day Journey
Bubbles
Imp's Treasure
Broken Wing
The Lost Piano
Cast
Anthony Warlow – Narrator
Brian Meegan – Bougie
Celia Ireland – Boronia
Gabby Millgate – Poppy
Adam Kronenberg – Imp
Michelle Doake – Notsy
Lucinda Armour – Spider / Ant
Tim Mieville – Jeffrey / Worm / Cicada
Production
The series was produced by the same producers as Bananas in Pyjamas at Catflap Animation Studios in Sydney. Catflap was launched and run by Maurice Giacomini (who also the director for the series) in 1988. Catflap has also made hundreds of television commercials, several animated short films, the character design for the 1995 animated film The Pied Piper of Hamelin and the animation for the American animated feature film All Dogs Go to Heaven 2 (which was a sequel to the first All Dogs Go to Heaven movie). Some of the episodes were written by Simon Hopkinson who has also written many episodes of Bananas in Pyjamas as well as other children's programmes such as New MacDonald's Farm, Dive Olly Dive!, Chuck Finn, Raggs and the animated feature film The Magic Pudding. It was one of the first children's fully 2D animated series created and produced for the ABC as well as being commissioned, funded and to have it aimed at pre-school children. Like several ABC shows such as Bananas in Pyjamas, The Adventures of Spot, Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends and Ferry Boat Fred it first aired at 3:55pm in the afternoons and at 9:25am in the mornings. However it was the final programme to air at 3:55pm, (the ABC's original afternoon timeslot) until 11 January 1999 where the afternoon schedules were now upgraded by having extra shows such as Play School now airing at 3:30pm and several half-hour, 5-minute short and 10-minute programmes airing at 4:00pm, although Petals continued airing at 9:25am in 2000. The characters for the show come from the long tradition of fairies imagined at the bottom of the garden, and both the look and feel of the characters were based on plant species such as boronia, poppies and forget-me-nots.
International airings
Petals has also been shown in several other countries including the United Kingdom, Slovakia, South Africa and Malaysia.
Video releases
Several episodes were released on video in 1998, however there has been no DVD release. There were three volumes in total and each of them contain ten episodes.