The Adventures of Voopa the Goolash (found New Zealand animated series; lost production material to further series and films; 2007-2008)

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The Adventures of Voopa the Goolash - characters.png

The series' characters.

Status: Partially Found

The Adventures of Voopa the Goolash is a 2007 New Zealand animated series created by digital graphics artist Craig Whyte; it was developed and animated by Photon VFX.[1] It's based on a 2005 SMS and web-based initiative, in which children would protect the Goolash species that are persecuted for the much-loved Goolash soup.[2] It was meant to have an environmental message about "sustainable living, in harmony with nature and all other living creatures". It was co-developed by Dennis and Gnasher and Shaun the Sheep writer Charles Hodges, who wrote half of the series' episodes. 13 episodes were produced and a bible for a possible second season[1][3] was delivered by Hodges.[4] Despite the fact it was set to broadcast in 27 countries,[5] the show ultimately received little to no distribution.

Production

Susan Kemp was responsible for designing the Goolash character designs.[6][5] The animation was made using Vue and Maya softwares.[7] According to creator Craig Whyte, around $5 million went into the production and it was set to broadcast into 27 countries.[5] Mediaset Italy, Bulgarian channel TV7 and Content Union Russia were a few of the companies that had signed deals with UK distributor The Production Team for a September 2008 broadcast date,[3][8][9] that seemingly never came to fruition.

As Craig Whyte writes:

[...] this was way back in 2007. It created a shitstorm that was hard to grab onto. Before I knew it it was in the hands of Jeff Taylor who put the Teletubbies on the map for BBC Worldwide. And a few other avaricious bloodsuckers from the children's entertainment business.
[...] Sadly it ended up in a cataclysmic bunfight between the original investors and Jeff Taylor and his cronies. The big swinging dicks did their swinging and although there were 13 episodes in the can it never went to market as the studio withheld the masters at the time of broadcast due to a spat over monies due from the NZ film commision.
It was an utter tragedy and ended up with me darn near taking my life. For real. It really was my way of putting back something to the world for all the blessings I had enjoyed despite my unbridled rampage through life - and I was crushed that it never got out to the little people![5]

Jeff Taylor appears to be one of the directors of New Zealand-based company Goolash Administration Limited (since it's inception on March 8, 2007), which was dissolved on January 20, 2013; another one called Goolash Productions Limited was incorporated four days later, and was dissolved on February 3, 2015.

On a October 15, 2014 issue of the MIPCOM newspaper, an article about a Dubai-based comapny called Goolash International Holdings distributing the show to UK-based group OCTOPUS TV was published.[10] On an issue of the Virgin Islands Official Gazzette, a company with the same name was stricken from the Register of Companies on May 3, 2016 for the "non-payment of annual fees".[11]

Two actresses have been credited for their work on an Italian dub of the show.[12][13]

Availability

The English version of Episode 1 was uploaded on YouTube by Craig Whyte on October 13, 2019. Episode 2 was uploaded on November 17, 2019. Other than the two and two Vimeo clips, there are no English videos of the series online.

The only known broadcaster of the show is Greek kids' station Smile TV, as well as associates and other stations where it distributes its programs (such as Vergina TV, Zeus TV, KRITI TV1 and Alpha TV Cyprus). It premiered in late 2012 (back when it was named 0-6; a few months before rebranding to its current name), and still airs daily as of March 2021, at 3:30am (UTC+2). All 13 episodes air with a Greek in-house dub. Only surfacing clips on the web are Greek trailers for the dub.

Episodes

# Episode Status
1 The Igazi Stone Found
2 The Great Skort Race Found
3 Growing Pains Lost
4 The Floon Lands Lost
5 Stealing the Crown Lost
6 Why Me Lost
7 The Wise One Lost
8 Spirits of the Forest Lost
9 Voopa Gets Rich Lost
10 A Floon Wedding Lost
11 Ant Wars Lost
12 How the Goodoop Got his Strips Lost
13 The Tale of the Comet Lost

Gallery

Images

Videos

Greek trailer for Smile TV.

Greek trailers for Zeus TV.

A clip of the series in English.

Reel of scenes from the series with English voices. Uploaded by CGI and effects artist Abhi Kala. (see respective blog post)

References

External links