http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_ComfortsCreature ComfortsFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Creature Comforts was originally a 1989 short film made in United Kingdom about how animals feel about living in a zoo, and later became a series of commercials for Heat Electric. In 2003 a television series in the same style was released.
The original filmThe original 5-minute film
Creature Comforts was conceived and directed by
Nick Park, and produced by
Aardman Animations featuring the voice acting of common, everyday members of the British public, in the same vein as the "man on the street", Vox Pop interviews. It was produced as part of a series called
Lip Synch for Channel 4 and can be found online exclusively at
AtomFilms.
The film shows various animals in a zoo being interviewed about their living conditions. These include turtles, a female gorilla, a family of polar bears and a melancholic puma who complains about the lack of "space" and the "grass with pollen that gives me hay fever every day!"
The dialogue was created by interviewing residents of a housing development, an old folks' home and a family that lived in a local shop (the polar bears). Clay animation was then created that attributed the answers to zoo animals. One of the most popular characters was the puma. He was in fact a Brazilian student who lived in a hotel and was talking about his own situation. (Source: DVD audio commentary).
This soon led to a series of British television commercials for the Electricity Board which were made in the same style, featuring a closing voice-over by
Johnny Morris. Ironically, many members of the public mistakenly believed these commercials were advertising gas heating, the main competitor to electricity.
(....)
American versionStarting June 2007, CBS planned to broadcast seven episodes of an Americanized version of the show, featuring ordinary American people providing the voices, in the same vein as the British original. The series was titled "Creature Comforts" and was seen Monday nights at 8PM ET/PT from June 4 to June 18, 2007;[1] the series was also simulcast in Canada on the CH system.
CBS also created a web presence with the help of the
Creature Comforts staff. A behind-the-scenes collaborative account/blog of each episode was posted in conjunction with the 3 short-lived airings.[2]
The American version was co-produced by
Aardman Animations and
The Gotham Group.
Seven episodes of this series were produced. However, the series ran for only three episodes before being cancelled by CBS due to low ratings. Its remaining episodes were never shown on television.[3]
A standard DVD of the show's seven episodes was released on October 9, 2007 by Sony, now entitled "
Creature Comforts America". Currently there is no Blu-Ray version, even though the show was mastered in 1080 HD 16x9.[4]
On February 8, 2008, the show won an
Annie Award for "Best Animated Television Production" of 2007.[5]
In Australia, public broadcaster ABC Television began airing the American season in Australia on February 18, 2008, having aired the original British version since its inception on both ABC1 and the digital only ABC2.
On April 24, 2008,
Animal Planet will pick up the first season of the American version. It will be broadcasted in both SD letterbox and native HD formats.
http://www.creaturecomforts.tv/http://www.wallaceandgromit.com/aardman.com
