Return to Dimbledale    (29.04.10)
  

   The Hound was part of what you might call the Rainbow Generation.
   That's to say, this old dawg grew up with the joys of Zippy, Bungle,
   George, Geoffrey and Rod, Jane and Freddy gambolling, grinning
   and jigging across his analogue tv, every weekday lunchtime...
   climbing... smilling... all over the sky...

   So, you can bet he was beaming nostalgically when he saw this:

   

   Is it flooding back yet? - Sally and Jake was Brian Cosgrove and Mark
   Hall's breakthrough stop-motion series which used to feature in the
   "Rainbow" line-up on ITV. That theme tune pops back in to head in
   an instant, as if it never went away:

   "Sally and Jake and their mother and father,
    and Granny and Sly the cat and Harry too,
    All of them live in a village called Dimbledale,
    Where there's always lots of things to do..."

   And that's the series for you, in a nutshell. Sally and Jake have lots of
   oh-so simple encounters and adventures around their sleepy country village.
   There's nothing earth-shattering going on, and by today's standards the
   characters and sets are - well - we'll just call them "rickety", lest folks
   think we're being impolite. But the important thing here is that this was
   Cosgrove Hall in all its raw and wonderful infancy, with two animation
   masters testing the waters and laying the foundations for a studio that
   would go on to dominate UK television for the next three decades.
   And if you're a student of these things, then this is a must-have
   release!

   Sally and Jake - The Complete Series was released on DVD by the
   folks at Network on 26th April. The two-disc set features both series
   of the show, plus the Christmas Special...

                                                              More: Sally and Jake

 
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