The Wombles
This British kids' show, based on a series of books by Elisabeth Beresford, followed a group of furry rodent/Smurf-like critters from Wimbledon Common, who spend their days cleaning up litter that they find. The group included Great Uncle Bulgaria, Tobermory, Orinoco, Bungo, Tomsk, Wellington, and Madame Cholet, each one had their own quirks and dressed a certain way.
A new series was made in the 1990s, introducing new characters such as Alderney and Stepney.
This show features examples of:
- Apologises a Lot: Wellington, who says 'sorry' a lot mostly because he is often thinking and doesn't hear what people say the first time.
- Art Evolution: The illustrations to the first book shows the Wombles as resembling teddy bears; in the later books they look like the puppets.
- Big Eater: Orinoco. Overlaps with The Slacker.
- Brave Scot: MacWomble the Terrible, leader of one of the Womble Clans of Scotland.
- Canon Immigrant: The 90s TV series introduced Stepeny (East End Womble) and Obidos (Brazilian Womble). (But not Alderney, who was in the books, but wasn't in the 70s series.)
- Cool Old Guy: Great Uncle Bulgaria
- Cute Bookworm: Wellington, who spends much of his time in the Library forgetting to come to meals.
- Fake Band
- Gang of Critters
- Green Aesop: Interestingly this was before recycling became popular.
- I Am Big Boned: "I'm not the fattest, I'm just cuddly!" We believe you, Orinoco, but millions wouldn't.
- Know Nothing Know It All: Bungo - despite being the youngest he thinks he knows everything.
- Lovable Jock: Tomsk, who's very keen on keeping fit. He tries to talk Orinoco into doing exercise, without much success.
- The Masquerade: One entire episode deals with efforts to prevent a human discovering Wellington. The solution involves a daring rescue undertaken by Bungo disguised as a cardboard box.
- Wombles try their best to not get spotted by humans. The Movie changes that to 'they don't appear unless you believe in them.'
- Mouse World
- The Movie: "Wombling Free"
- The Smurfette Principle
- And Affirmative Action Girl in the 1990s version, which added Alderney from the books.
- Stock Ness Monster: Ness the Water Womble. Yes, the Loch Ness Monster is actually a Womble. Mystery solved.
- Talking to Himself: In the original series all the voices are done by Bernard Cribbins.
- Theme Naming: The Wombles are named after places found on an old map!
- Widget Series.