Oct
9th
2023
About 23 years ago... · 3:19am Oct 9th, 2023
Cast your mind back to the year 2000, provided you were alive then. In the UK, something very unsual happened in the charts. Many expected that the top single of the year would be by a certain rapper whose name sounds like confectionary. Others thought a boyband would be the winner of the contest.
They were wrong.
The number 1 single in the UK charts that year was this:
Bob the Builder had defied the odds and achieved the number one spot, a position the song held for two weeks. He would repeat the trick a year later with Mambo No. 5.
Interesting moments from musical history with The Blue EM2.
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The Blue EM2 · 290 views
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Haha! I remember that!
Bob the Builder was all the rage.
No one could make sense out of it, but everyone from kindergartens to Sunday schools rode the wave of assumed popularity.
Can we build it
5749645
It is a very British show, so the fact it took off in America is quite surprising.
5749646
YES WE CAN!
https://youtu.be/4xx0q3oa-4U?si=LSqgl9iPGEVCpYGA
5749648
Heck yeah I remember watching the show on Nick Jr when I was a kid even though I like Blue's Clues better but hey it just brings back memories watching these shows
Bob the Builder was AWESOME
Crikey! I had no idea this music video existed! But wow! What a video!
And here I thought the Live Show was something.
5749651
Interesting link but I'm not sure what it has to do with the blogpost.
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In Britain, it's one of the Big Four kids shows. The other three are Thomas and Friends, Postman Pat, and Fireman Sam (I don't believe the last of those made it to the United States).
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It also had some pretty big talent involved. Neil Morrissey, Kate Harbour, Rob Rackstraw, to name a few. Even Richard Briers (a fairly well known character actor in the UK) was a regular for a period (he voiced Bob's father).
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If you think that's good, you should see the music video from Mambo No. 5. I mean, for a kid's show the production values on Bob the Builder were absolutely staggering.
Quite a few Thomas and Friends VAs appeared on it as well (and the US version of the reboot stars quite a few MLP VAs-most notably Claire Corlett, who voiced Dizzie using the exact same voice she used for Sweetie Belle).
I was too young to see the live show, sadly, but I had the VHS and recently found a YouTube upload of an official recording. That was definitely from the glory days of live shows, with elaborate sets, complex animatronics and props, and character designs that were faithful to the originals without being uncanny valley.
5749676
Just like Pokemon Bob the Builder came to America much later it came to America and 2004 but ended in 2013
5749675
Watch it, it's a Thomas fan video with something... interesting.
5749686
It got rebooted in 2015 (with many VAs from FiM appearing).
5749691
OK.
5749679
Indeed it was. Those models were pretty impressive.
Wasn’t James’ UK on the show?
I know of Claire being on the show. I have a poster with all of her characters shown on it.
Indeed it was. But in a way, it’s a little annoying that only Bob the Builder The Live Show got a VHS and DVD release. Out of all HiT Entertainment shows that had a live performance.
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Rob Rackstraw voiced Scoop and Muck, but not Dizzy, nor Roley too (Kate Harbour and Neil Morrissey respectively) in the classic series. Rackstraw reprised the role of Scoop in the 2015 reboot, but Muck was recast with Paul Panting (Vincent Tong in the US dub).
It's odd it was the only one that was filmed. I imagine the Thomas live show would have been quite the sales hit.
5749821
Huh. I didn’t know Vince was in it.
I bet. And not just that one, but the 2 that took place on stage too. I wish the Blue’s Clues Live could’ve been done too.
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There was a Blue's Clues live show? I need to look into this.
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Yes, there was several of them. And they’re currently doing another for Blue’s Clue’s and You.
I went to the original live show in 2001 or 2002.
And other shows that did it was also VeggieTales (which it got a DVD of its whole show), The Backyardigans, and then a Nick Jr themed one with multiple shows in one.
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I can only assume it never made it to the UK (British Blue's Clues was a very different show to its American counterpart).
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Yeah, I’ve seen videos on YouTube showcasing the differences between the 2, UK has a completely different guy.
5749999
It does indeed.
5750022
But, Kevin’s a cool guy, NGL.
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As would be a rather critical requirement of such a show. A friend of mine here (who has long since deleted her account) was surprised when she learned that there were localised versions of a lot of these shows. She hadn't even realised that Thomas and Friends was first recorded with UK voice actors and then dubbed with US ones. (In fairness, she didn't really have much of a reason to know that).
5750167
I know the feelings, I didn’t know about Thomas UK having a different narrator for season 6 until I got the VHS copy of New Friends for Thomas, where it had MA narrating it.
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It was an audio book for me (it had a red cassette tape; an American relative got it when he visited us).
5750305
Ah.
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But it opened my eyes. Six year old me hadn't even considered the possibility of Thomas having a different voice.
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I don’t remember what I thought of it, but I think I was too focused on the show to really take into account the different-sounding voices. Even when it came to down to the way they sounded in the computer games.
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Some of the games had different actors (I believe Trouble on the Tracks was the first TTTE production to have no narrator but the main series cast).
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I don’t remember Trouble on the Tracks having that. I’ve played that game several times. It is just with the UK version?
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It might be.
5750621
Perhaps.