Bob the Builder (found pitch pilot of CBeebies stop-motion animated series; 1997)

The series' prototype logo.

Status: Found

Date found: 22 Dec 2020

Found by: Kingmrharvey

Bob The Builder was an animated stop motion children's series that premiered on November 28th, 1998 on BBC in the United Kingdom and in 2001 on Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. block in the United States and would go on to produce 250 episodes from November 1998 to October 2011. A 2015 series premiered on September 1st, 2015 and aired until December 30th, 2018 on Channel 5. Another Bob the Builder reboot series is yet to be announced. In order to pitch the show to HiT Entertainment, a pilot was filmed in 1997. The pilot was screened to HiT Entertainment executives on May 15, 1997.

Information on the Pilot

The pilot starts with Bob waking up Digger, the Bob (who was voiced by Neil Morrissey, who also voices him in the series) turns on the radio, then trips, Digger (who was voiced by Stuart Greenall) drops a shovel, Bob gets a ladder to get a bird's nest out of a nearby rain drain, Digger hand's him a shovel, Digger knocks the ladder Bob was on, Bob falls into Diggers scope and the bird's nest falls on Bob's head.

Curtis Jobling, the former designer of Bob the Builder was asked about the pilot and said:

"Bob had very red lips in the pilot, Curtis didn't design it, the pilot was produced in 1997 (1 year before the actual first episode, "Pilchard in a Pickle", was produced), the pilot wasn't very good and nearly got the show cancelled."

Availability

It never aired on television or was released on DVD and for over twenty years was never seen by the public.

Before December 2020, the only glimpses of the pilot were a behind-the-scenes photo, a photo of Digger's model and concept art of Digger and was originally thought to be 90 seconds long. Jobling said he has a copy of the pilot while being asked about it.

On December 22nd, 2020, after being sent a copy by one of the producers, the full pilot was found by user kingmrharvey and was uploaded to archive.org by Mike Shmit. It is revealed that Bob and Digger were the only characters in the pilot, though Digger was redesigned as Scoop, Rob Rackstraw was cast as the character in the series UK dub, while Alan Marriott took the mantle for the show's US release in 2001.

Gallery

Images

• 

  A behind-the-scenes photo of the pilot.

• 

  Digger's model.

• 

  Scoop/Digger's concept art.

Footage

The full pilot.

See Also

Bob the Builder

• Bob the Builder (partially found American dub of CBeebies stop-motion animated series; 1999-2012)

CBeebies

• Alphablocks (partially found web-exclusive scenes of CBeebies animated series episodes; 2010-2013)
• Big & Small (partially lost CBeebies comedy puppet series; 2008-2011)
• CBeebies Springwatch (partially found preschool spin-off of British documentary series; 2006-2008)
• Doodle Do (found CBeebies series; 2006-2010)
• Razzledazzle (found CBeebies CGI animated series; 2005)
• Rubbadubbers (lost unaired pilots of CBeebies stop-motion animated series; existence unconfirmed; late 1990s-early 2000s)
• Space Pirates (found CBeebies live-action animated series; 2007-2008)
• The Wordles (partially found pitch pilot of "Abadas" CBeebies animated series; 2010)
• Zingalong (partially found CBeebies series; 2002-2004)

External Links

• Bob the Builder Wiki page on the pilot.