Fireman Sam

I can remember first seeing this stop-motion animated kids' programme when I was very young, probably shortly before or after its demise. Like most other shows I can remember from my childhood, I liked this one a lot. I can also recall still watching reruns of it several years later. It has been over a decade since then, but I remember accidentally coming across the show on TV once a few years ago, and even if that hadn't happened, I would still remember it very well!

Fireman Sam was a firefighter who lived in Pontypandy, a town in Wales. Other main characters in the show included Sam's fellow firefighters (Station Officer Basil Steele, Penny Morris, Trevor Evans, and Elvis Cridlington) along with several other townspeople. He was a hero to the town, and certain people in the community often needed the help of Sam and the other firefighters, whether it was for a fire or something else, including Norman, a mischievous kid who often found himself in trouble due to his lack of self-control.

"Fireman Sam" was an educational programme which could teach kids about safety. To make it entertaining as well, the show was also rich with adventure and humour. A lot of the laughs came from Norman's mischievous ways. Another highlight was the very catchy theme song. For all those reasons, the show is very memorable, and I'm sure many kids today could enjoy it just as much as those who watched while they were kids in the '80s or '90s! I'm sure there are still reruns of the show played, so it's not one of those kids' shows that have been forgotten, fortunately.

It's too kiddie and slow. It's nothing new.

Verdict: fire these animators.

This programme has a lot of nice elements. The dreamy village setting is nice, the messages of guidance are clear and the story lines easy to follow. Our young children like it a lot. Which means I end up watching it a lot, too :-) If I could, I'd change a few things. The utter hero-worship of Sam, modest though he is, is too much; the kids always end up wanting to be him. Also, he's a rescue service of every kind, if a fuse went in the telly they'd "ring Fireman Sam". But toughest is Norman's harshly horrible voice which is the most unpleasant kid's voice you've ever know mixed with the most OTT caricature of Welsh.

None of these things are crimes and the good of the show very much outweighs the bad. It's just when you've watched twenty or thirty of them in a summer, they start to grate just a tiny bit...!

I remember this show from my countless hours of viewing in the early 90's (probably aged no more than 4 at the time). I saw it again recently and it brought back such memories...this show is an absolute classic. The theme song alone is great.If you liked postman pat or something like that then you'll love this.

Fireman Sam is a two-sided affair. On the one hand, because the first 4 seasons are a long way from the later ones, but above all because the switch from stop-motion to CGI animations has given the series an extreme kink. In addition, the stories are designed to be more superficial and less value-oriented. So you can rate the first seasons with a very good 9 stars, the later with a lucky 3 stars, so that in the end (unfortunately) an overall rating of 6 points comes out; and that's still benevolent, because the CGI era is much more extensive than that of classic stop motion.