Nowadays everyone's got something to say about the world. You can't move
    for vox pops, talking heads and opinion slots plastered across the media. But what
    about all the animals we interact with every day, our pets, the urban wildlife and
    animals in the zoo, might they be just as talkative and opinionated if given the
    chance to speak?

    Well, this here stop-motion series from Aardman Animations gives them that
    chance. It turns the microphones and the cameras on the great and small
    creatures of our world and beyond. From cats and dogs to microbes and aliens
    and everything two-legged, two-winged, four-legged, multi-legged, multi-limbed
    and no-limbed in-between. They give us their opinion on work, holidays, sickness,
    Christmas, sports, family and the universe. There's a ton of speculation,
    misconception, insight and befuddlement and it's all very sly, clever and
    funny indeed. Even cleverer is the fact that it's our own voices coming out
    of the characters' mouths. That's because the Aardman team have gathered
    together members of the Great British Public and placed microphones
    in front of them to let them ramble. These voices have then been aligned
    to some fabulous grinning creations and the incongruity of it all works
    superbly. There's so much depth to each enunciated performance, they're
    a joy to watch. And the performances are matched by the environments.
    Each critter has been presented within a precise snapshot of their particular
    world. They're carefully dressed and staged to highlight the humour, the
    pathos or charm of the scenario, twisting expectations, unearthing new
    meaning and relevance behind even the most mundane of comments.

    Of course, if you know your toons, you'll know that this series is actually
    a spin-off from the Academy Award-winning short film of the same name,
    directed by Nick Park way back in 1990. That film was originally produced
    as part of Aardman's "Lip Synch" series, but it quickly grew legs and ran
    away with plaudits around the world. Aardman employed the same concept
    in a Heat Electric/Total Heating commercial campaign in which Frank the
    Tortoise, Carol the Cat and Pablo the Parrot expounded on the merits of
    central heating, and a clutch of high-profile advertising awards soon followed.
    The critics loved those creatures and so did the British public.
    
    Jump forward seventeen years and this series commission takes up the concept
    again and runs with it, right around the globe. Longtime Aardman associate
    Richard Goleszowski directs this time and he takes us under water, out into the
    garden, on to the shoreline and even under the microscope in the quest for all
    those animal opinions. ITV made the brave decision to premiere the series in
    a peak timeslot, next to their flagship soap "Coronation Street", which resulted
    in some impressive viewing figures.
    
    Originally, two series of thirteen episodes were commissioned. But if we jump
    forward in time still further, to 2007, we'll find that an additional thirteen episodes
    were produced. This time around, the vox pops shifted to America, using voices
    from the USA aligned to some brand-new varmints and locations. Some folks
    bill this as Series Three, whilst others like to refer to it as "Creature Comforts
    in the USA". Either way, it's distinct from the previous two series in both content
    and presentation, so it has a separate entry, here at Toonhound. Once
    more, critics warmed to the talking creatures and their sly juxtaposition,
    but the Stateside audience was muted. The series was dropped by CBS after
    only three episodes.

    Even so, the animals themselves refused to lie down. They starred in a short
    charity film special that was aired during Red Nose Day 2007. And in addition
    we got eight new "Creature Discomforts" television advertisements. These featured
    disabled animals discussing how their disability effects them around their home
    and working environments. There's just something deliciously simple about
    this vox pop concept that has allowed the Aardman team to got back to the
    font (or should that be, water bowl?) time and time again...

 

    

    Merry Christmas Everybody!
    
    The second series of the show includes an extended Christmas special.
    "Merry Christmas Everybody" invites the animals to share their experiences
    of the big Winter holiday and to sing us their version of "The Twelve Days of
    Christmas". It has a 23min running time...

 

    See also

    Creature Comforts (USA)

 

    Luxo detail

    Aardman just love their detail, don;'t they? Here at Toonhound, we've freeze-
    framed our way through a number of their productions to highlight some of
    the blink-and-you'll-miss'em delights (here, here and here, for starters).
    "Creature Comforts" brings us more of the same, and we'll have to go through
    it properly some time to show you what's what. But for now, we're simply going
    to highlight The Hound's favourite little in-joke in the series. It's from the
    episode "Pets at the Vets" and it features a quartet of circus dogs in the
    vet's waiting room. Look closely and you'll see one of them is wearing a
    lampshade collar and on the floor beside him is a distinct, star-patterned,
    rubber ball. Animation fans will immediately see this is a reference to that
    great Hollywood toonhouse Pixar. The dog and ball are mocking Pixar's
    Luxo Jnr, the bouncing angle-poise lamp character who features in the
    company's animated idents!

    

 

     Comfortable critters

 

     On the web


     Creature Comforts
     The official series site...

     Aardman Animation
     The studio's super site...