Little Red Tractor

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Little Red Tractor is a British 2004 children's television series co-produced by the Little Entertainment Company and Entertainment Rights.^[1] The ten-minute episodes were broadcast in the United Kingdom by the BBC on the CBeebies channel.^[2]

The series is produced using stop motion model animation and features unusually detailed sets and models. It features the voices of Stephen Tompkinson and Derek Griffiths. The characters are based on the books by Colin Reeder, which were narrated for video in the mid 1990s by Brian Glover and Richard Briers. It is mainly aimed at an audience at elementary school.

History[]

Little Red Tractor Projects Limited owned the original Little Red Tractor video series. Despite not having television exposure, Little Red Tractor broke into the top ten children's videos and stayed there for several weeks. In total, the original series sold over 300,000 copies. Contender the distributor wanted to duplicate that success. However, the television rights were sold to Keith Littler's Little Entertainment Group because Peter Tye, the director/writer of the series, preferred their expertise in stop frame animation and empathy with the original. Despite losing the television rights to Little Red Tractor, Contender went ahead and produced their similar series, Tractor Tom. Despite apparent similarities to Tractor Tom, Little Red Tractor has a completely different style, with more realistic story-lines, a larger human cast, and no surreal livestock behaviour.

Characters[]

The characters of the series are:

• Stan – Little Red Tractor's driver and constant companion. Stan lives at Gosling Farm, and keeps two cows Daisy and Veronica, and two pigs. He is voiced by Stephen Tompkinson.
• Little Red Tractor (leader) – a small and old but reliable farm tractor, mute but capable of expressing emotions. Stan restored him to his farm as in new condition. He resembles Tom from Tractor Tom.
• Patch – is Stan's dog, Patch is depicted as a male in the 2004 series whereas in the original stories depict Patch as a female.
• Mr. Jones – Stan's neighbour and owner of Big Blue Tractor and Harvey. He often appears selfish, materialistic or otherwise antisocial, but tends to be socially inept or smug rather than actually unpleasant. His full name is Mr. Jasper Jones and he lives at Beech Farm. He is voiced by Derek Griffiths.
• Big Blue Tractor (co-leader) – a large, up-to-date farm tractor owned by Mr. Jones. Has no anthropomorphic traits, but can blow his horn by himself. He resembles Travis from Bob the Builder. In the original stories he was named Big Fred.
• Harvey – Combine harvester owned by Mr. Jones but sometimes borrowed by Stan. He resembles Wheezy from Tractor Tom.
• Thomas – Mr. Jones' nephew who comes to stay at Beech farm with him on occasion since Mr. Jones' sister moved back from the city to the country. Thomas is learning to like the country life which he initially thought was smelly, dirty and not as good as computer games.
• Stumpy – the miller. Friendly, mildly eccentric and clumsy. Drives his quadbike, "Nipper" very badly. Stumpy plays in Walters band. He is voiced by Jimmy Hibbert.
• Elsie – She is Stumpy's wife.
• Nipper – a quadbike ridden by Stumpy. He resembles Buzz from Tractor Tom and Scrambler from Bob the Builder.
• Ryan – Child neighbour of Stan. He and his sister like to play with Little Red Tractor and help out.
• Amy – Ryan's sister.
• Mr Turvey – Ryan and Amy's father. He likes to run and plays keyboards in Walters band.
• Mrs Turvey – Ryan and Amy's mother. She likes to paint and does arts and crafts.
• Walter – A Black man who runs the Babblebrook garage and likes to play rock and roll. Walter is easily led astray. Walter is lead singer and plays the guitar for his band called Walter and the Wolverines.
• Nicola – Walter's daughter who also runs the garage. She tends to be far more sensible than her father. Nicola also plays an instrument in her fathers band.
• Leo – Walter's nephew, becomes a friend of Ryan and Amy. He is a more than competent drummer who Stands in for Nicola in Walter's Band.
• Sparky – Tow truck which Nicola and Walter drive.
• Rusty – Walter's unreliable car and restoration project who unfortunately breaks down regularly.

Episodes[]

• 1. The Big Bang
• 2. The Ladder
• 3. The Gold Cup
• 4. Little Red Tractor's Birthday
• 5. Making Hay
• 6. The Lucky Day
• 7. Berries
• 8. Mr. Fixit
• 9. Flying
• 10. The Garage Sale
• 11. Tiger, Tiger
• 12. The Windy Day
• 13. Farm of the Year
• 14. The Dam
• 15. The Silence of the Cows
• 16. The Big Sneeze
• 17. The Secret Den
• 18. Mr. Big
• 19. The Detectives
• 20. Roof Tops
• 21. Winter Lights
• 22. Dog Gone
• 23. Bye Bye, Blue
• 24. Enter the Dragon
• 25. Water Water
• 26. The Party
• 27. The Beast of Babble-Brook
• 28. The New Engine
• 29. The Town Boy
• 30. Circles in the Corn
• 31. Spuds
• 32. Little Red Rocker
• 33. Glorious Mud
• 34. The New Addition
• 35. The Tree House
• 36. Traction Trouble
• 37. Gone With the Wind
• 38. Llama Drama
• 39. Read All About It
• 40. Marrow Mangler
• 41. Buried Treasure
• 42. The Ghost of Tawny Owl Wood
• 43. The Beech Farm Flyer
• 44. Paper Chase
• 45. Molehills and Windmills
• 46. May Day
• 47. Scrambled Eggs
• 48. Farm Games
• 49. Double Trouble
• 50. Hot Hot Hot
• 51. Cheesed Off
• 52. Magic Hat
• 53. Thunder and Dancing
• 54. Row Yer Boat
• 55. Lost!
• 56. Up, Up and Away
• 57. One Potato, Two Potato
• 58. The Show Must Go On
• 59. Too Cold for Snow
• 60. Furry Jumper
• 61. Topsy Turvey
• 62. The Map
• 63. The Hill
• 64. Run
• 65. Movie Madness
• 66. Kart Race
• 67. What's Up, Duck?
• 68. Rambling Rabbits
• 69. Milkshake
• 70. Dog Gone
• 71. An Unwanted Tractor
• 72. Rain Dance
• 73. Bubblegum
• 74. Countryside Code
• 75. Welcome Home

References[]

External links[]

• Little Red Tractor at BBC Online
• Little Red Tractor at IMDb
• Little Red Tractor at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• Little Red Tractor Stories at the Big Cartoon DataBase