Pogle's Wood (1965–1968) User Reviews

In a wood lived Pogle. It was a dark wood.

[federovsky · 27 January 2005]

I remember rushing home from school to watch this. It was instantly my favourite. There was something mysterious about it. Not quite as innocent as some of the other BBC programs were we used to watch like Bill and Ben or the Woodentops, it was more in the line of Bagpuss, as I remember. The characters seemed to have a little more depth and the whole thing had atmosphere and a sort of poetry. Perhaps it was ahead of its time. It's a long time ago now and my recollection is vague, but the name is still resonant.

It wasn't on long. I always thought about it for many years afterwards and wished they'd show it again. The dark wood captured my imagination when I was very young. When I was young, I believed in Pogle. Now decades later, I like to walk in woods.

The pioneer of Children's animation.

[sat-elite · 9 December 2008]

Well, the day has come when I take down Major Clanger from the bookshelf and give him a good dusting down.

And the battery inside him for the past six years still gives him enough energy to speak.

I was under two years old when Pogles Wood came onto the TV, a small screen affair in black and white that my father had most likely built from components borrowed from his time in the Navy.

The whole ensemble, Mr and Mrs Pogle, Pippin, Tog and Plant (which they fed before he would tell a story - the highlight of the ten minute animation) was expertly created and realised for the new age UK television and the early Watch with Mother, but the 'dark side' and the alleged pagan worship and witchcraft was met with some derision by the new bosses of the BBC, and so the programme was cut after a few episodes and, as far as I know, never repeated.

It remains one of the best shorts from the Postgate company Smallfilms and should be sourced by any means, just to confirm that children's entertainment for those under five years old can involve a story, regardless of any ubiquitous flashing lights and electronic sounds that are deemed the minimum nowadays.

Only now, series such as Charlie and Lola are catching onto the ideas that transported children into that wonderland, with Dangermouse offering a stopgap in the 70's.

Oliver, RIP, I trust soup dragon will provide you with all the blue string you can eat.

An interestingly children's animation with a very slight dark edge that tends to make it stick in the mind

[bob the moo · 3 May 2005]

In a dark wood live the Pogles – a small man and woman living in their little hidyhole home. Strange things occur within the wood and each week it seems to be something different that the Pogles have to deal with. This classic British children's animation stands out because it is rather darker than many similar animations, given that it is set in a dark wood and features witches and hags in key roles – indeed some of the episodes were deemed "too scary" for young children by the BBC and were not originally screened.

The delivery is very simple, the animation is stop-motion figures that lack a great deal of detail but, along with the sets, it does set a nice atmosphere. It is the plots that give it a darker edge as they do involve a certain amount of magic, witches and so on – nothing "scary" by modern standards but then they were different times then I suppose. Overall, this is now rarely seen and its short run meant that it tends to be overlooked in favour of the main childhood favourites of Bill & Ben, Magic Roundabout and so on but it is still nicely nostalgic in its style as well as having a slightly darker edge that other children's programmes of the period didn't often have.