News

Peppa Pig knows how to get to Sesame Street …. just turn on Netflix.

After the streaming giant announced a deal for the children’s TV staple earlier Monday, it followed up with the news that new episodes of Peppa Pig will stream on Netflix. The title character will also anchor a new mobile game, World of Peppa Pig, and a Sesame Street game is now in the works as Netflix ramps up in the kids gaming sector.

In a blog post, Netflix said World of Peppa Pig is an umbrella for a collection of mini-games and videos designed around puzzle-solving, memory, counting, object recognition, and matching patterns. The games and videos are aimed at teaching kids key life skills. Plus, “adjustable difficulty levels make it easy to tailor the game’s challenges to your tot,” Netflix noted.

Sesame Street’s arrival on Netflix after HBO Max declined to renew its streaming deal for the show,...

The next time Suzy Sheep calls Peppa Pig to brag about her whistling skills, she’s going to hear a very different (but still very annoyed) voice on the other line. After 13 years, actress Harley Bird is stepping down as the animated series’ titular swine, CNN reports.

Bird, who won a BAFTA in 2011 for her work on the British children’s program, is passing the torch to nine-year-old actress Amelie Bea Smith.

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Peppa Pig is getting a new voice. The hit kids’ series is swapping Harley Bird for Amelie Bea Smith.

The series, which is produced by eOne and Astley Baker Davies, airs on Nickelodeon in the U.S. and ViacomCBS’ Channel 5 in the UK as well as broadcasters in more than 180 territories.

Bird has voiced the cartoon pig for 13 years, since she was 5 years old, taking over in 2007 during its third season and voicing Peppa for 185 episodes, winning a BAFTA in 2011.

Smith, who has appeared in a number of episodes of BBC soap EastEnders and is set to star in Netflix’s Haunting of Bly Manor, will take over from Valentine’s Day.

Bird said, “Becoming the voice of Peppa Pig at the age of five was the start of an incredible journey, and I’ll never forget my time on the show. The people that work on Peppa Pig...

Entertainment One and animation studio Astley Baker Davies have cast a new voice artist for the role of Peppa Pig.

Nine-year-old Amelie Bea Smith makes her debut voicing the title character of the animated hit in new episodes that launch next month in the U.K., U.S., Australia and international territories that air episodes in English.

Smith is the fourth British voice artist to take on the role in English-speaking territories. Her voice will first appear in the “Peppa Pig” episode Valentine’s Day.

Before voicing “Peppa Pig,” she appeared in several episodes of long-running British soap opera “EastEnders” in 2018 and 2019.

Smith takes over from Harley Bird, now 18, who has been the voice of Peppa Pig from the age of five and won a BAFTA for the role in 2011. Bird is in her final year of school, and her acting credits also include feature film “How I Live Now,” alongside Saorise Ronan,...

Matchbox Pictures. Nowhere Boys has scored its first nomination for the British Academy Children.s Awards presented by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

The ABC3 teen drama created by Tony Ayres and produced by Beth Frey is in the running for the international award along with Cartoon Network's Clarence and Adventure Time and Disney Xd's Gravity Falls. BBC2/Lion TV.s gruesomely entertaining history show Horrible Histories leads the nominations with nods for comedy and writing for the Magna Carta episode and for Jessica Ransom's portrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots. Peppa Pig received its ninth nomination for pre-school: animation and its fourth in the writer category.

The nominees for best feature are Big Hero 6, Inside Out, Paddington and Shaun the Sheep: The Movie. The awards will be handed out at the Roundhouse, London, on November 22, hosted by actor/comedian/screenwriter Doc Brown. Earlier...

Brian Blessed and Sir Doris the hamster make this remastered 1999 series by the creators of Peppa Pig and Ben & Holly this week’s best kid-friendly option

With decent family films fairly thin on the ground this half term, this BFI-supported tour of seven remastered episodes of the 1999 BBC animated series is almost certainly the best kid-friendly cinema option of the week. Directed by Neville Astley and Mark Baker, who went on to create Peppa Pig and Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom, The Big Knights is the rambunctuously funny tale of two oversized brothers, Sir Boris (David Rintoul) and Sir Morris (Brian Blessed).

Blundering and blusterous, but endearingly well-meaning, the Knights crash though a world of yore, accompanied by their armour-clad pets, Sir Horace the dog and Sir Doris the hamster. It’s a slyly parent-friendly world, constantly threatened by ‘unexpected cataclysmic events’, populated by vampires, witches, brilliant but dangerously insane...

Horrible Histories could be heading to success at this year's British Academy Children's Awards after being nominated in three categories.

The programme leads the nominations with nods in the Comedy and Writing categories, while Jessica Ransom is also nominated in the performer category for her turn as Mary, Queen of Scots.

Elsewhere, The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm is nominated in the Comedy category, while star Harry Hill is also a contender.

Meanwhile, Peppa Pig is up for awards in the Preschool: Animation and Writer categories, while Operation Ouch! is in the running for a Factual award.

Operation Ouch! hosts Drs Alexander and Chris van Tulleken are nominated for Presenter awards, as are Sam Nixon and Mark Rhodes of Sam & Mark's Big Friday Wind-Up.

Harriet's Army has nominations for Drama and Writer, while The Dumping Ground, Wolfblood and Katie Morag are all up for Drama awards.

All At Sea...

This winning compilation of shorts by Mark Baker and Neville Astley includes kids’ favourites Peppa Pig and Ben and Holly, and darker, more adult-skewed material

This nicely programmed compilation of shorts – some directed by Mark Baker and some by Neville Astley and a bunch they made together – is a treat for two distinct constituencies. Animation buffs who know their early, slightly dark and adult-skewed shorts, such as Baker’s The Hill Farm and The Village and Astley’s Mobile Home, will be thrilled at the chance to catch these in proper cinemas for a change. Meanwhile, parents who are secretly sad their sprogs have outgrown Peppa Pig and Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom, the series the duo created, can have a sly wallow with a few well-chosen episodes.

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The multi-award-winning animation outfit Astley Baker Davies had its roots in the partnership of Neville Astley and Mark Baker, who made a string of well-regarded films beginning in the late 1980s. After they got together with producer Phil Davies, the global kiddie favourite Peppa Pig emerged, first broadcast in 2003. Here we have a clip of Baker’s early short, from 1988, made while he was a student at the National Film and Television School; it won a Bafta, as well a securing an Oscar nomination.

The World of Astley Baker Davies starts at Regent Street Cinema on 10 September with a Q&A with the directors, then tours

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Kate Cox has become the struggling Sun-Herald’s third editor in three years as part of Fairfax Metro’s widespread restructure of its Nsw operation.

Cox has become editor of the Sunday tabloid after it recorded some of the biggest percentage circulation drops in Australian newspaper history since relaunching in March.

Editor Rick Feneley will become “senior writer across all platforms” after about 18 months at the helm. He replaced Simon Delhunty, who led the Sun-Herald’s previous relaunch.

Cox’s promotion comes less than a year after being appointed to edit Sunday Life.

Both News Limited and Fairfax have moved to restructure their staff with single editorial teams across weekday and weekend newspapers and across both print and online. News has labelled its position “one city one newsroom”.

The Fairfax appointments are the latest since the departure of the Sydney Morning Herald’s publisher and editor Peter Fray and Amanda Wilson.

So the winner is in on the battle of the bylines for today’s strike-busting edition of the Sydney Morning Herald.

Two loyal staffers take joint bronze, with two bylines each – step forward, national business editor Sean Aylmer and and Gm of travel Lauren Quaintance.

Silver goes to managing editor (national), Mark Baker, with three bylines.

But gold goes to Aap – which clocked up eight bylines.

The paper was, of course, also mainly laid out by Aap’s Pagemasters.

Dr Mumbo is in Sydney – he’d be intrigued to hear from a Melbourne reader how the Age looks today.

One of the most popular and recognizable animated television shows currently airing, Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom is another great creation from Mark Baker and Neville Astley, the creators behind the iconic Peppa Pig. Earning many awards (including a BAFTA) and enjoying so much praise from children and families, the series has been given some nice DVD releases among its merchandise with a great number of episodes and good presentation.

A triple pack has been released today that features the first three DVD volumes, costing just under ten pounds for what is a great addition for those who are new to the series or looking for the right time to get them for their children to enjoy.

The series is set in a woodland amongst thorny brambles where Elves and fairies live amongst each other. Among them, we focus on fairy princess Holly and Ben Elf as they have...

Toy Story 3; A Town Called Panic; The Hammer and Tongs Collection; How to Train Your Dragon

With the arrival of Toy Story 3 (2010, Disney, PG), cinema (and now DVD) arguably has its first note-perfect trilogy. While Coppola lost the plot in The Godfather's third act, Kieslowski fumbled the ball with Three Colours: White and Jackson's The Two Towers (inevitably) sagged a bit in the middle, Pixar's bittersweet final outing with Woody and Buzz has all the poignant beauty of the last chapter of Winnie the Pooh. Remember that strange sensation (loss, elation, befuddlement) you got as Christopher Robin tried to explain to Pooh why he might not be coming back to the Hundred Acre Wood but Pooh would always have Piglet and Eeyore to play with? Well, prepare to shed those same tears again – all the more so if you're a grown-up who has long since put away childish things,...