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Me, for one.
I always adored it and used to bore the pants off people who'd never seen it trying to explain precisely why it was so good - difficult, because no TV stations ever seemed to repeat it.
There's a huge great wad of that patented Cosgrove/Hall dryness in there. It's just self-knowing enough to feel slightly edgy, but never steps anywhere near to the line that'd mark it out as being more for parents than their kids. You can't enjoy it if you even attempt to come at it from a grown-up angle. To the very young Dupre it felt subversive. Compare it to the other stop-motion stuff doing the rounds at the time. Trumpton. Camberwick Green. That stuff was alright and I distinctly remember enjoying those shows too, but they always left me feeling a bit full, a bit tired, like they'd mushed my brain into sticky toffee pudding - C&tW, in comparison, left me feeling like I'd been let in on some big secret, left me feeling sparkly.
It's got a really joyous, upbeat atmosphere - Chorlton is quite obviously drugged up to his eyeballs, but he's not stupid. He's yr eternal optimist. Hell the dude's a Happiness Dragon. And there's a fucking masterful balancing act being pulled off here - if that was all it was, some plastic dragon who thought everything was lovely, it'd be the most patronising show around. Instead though, you had the Wheelies themselves, all that little bit more aware of the realities of life than the big guy. They were the middle ground between him and Fenella, who was probably my first introduction to world-weary cynicism.
It's just some really imaginative, wonderful shit. If the Magic Roundabout is Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, Chorlton & the Wheelies is Super Furry Animals circa Radiator.
One of the greatest theme tunes ever written, too. |
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