The Animals of Farthing Wood

I used to absolutely love this cartoon back in the day! I remember watching it on a Tuesday (at least I think it was a Tuesday) because two of my favourite cartoon shows were on one after the other. Firstly this and then 'The Legends of Treasure Island' although I can't remember if they were on two separate channels, BBC and ITV.

My friends and I used to play The Animals of Farthing Wood in the infants in Primary school! Man, those were the days! I Would love to go back and relive some of them :)

The series is based on the books by Colin Dann and follows a number of animals on a journey to White Deer park after their home of Farthing Wood begins becoming chopped down by humans for houses to be built. White Deer park is a nature reserve where the animals believe they will be safe but first they have to travel there which isn't easy by any means.

The surprising thing about this cartoon is that a lot of the animals die which I think would have affected a few smaller kids watching. There were sad scenes like the hedgehogs on the motorway incident where they were too scared to move any further and curled up into balls. I didn't like that scene.

Yes the animals face a lot of peril along the way with not all of them making it. They are led by Fox who is brave and bold, wise Owl and Toad who offer advice, Badger and Mole who are like father and son and also Adder and Weasel who share quite a comedic on screen partnership. That's just a few of the characters introduced.

When they finally reach White Deer Park they aren't as safe as they think. Hence series 2 and a new nemesis, Scarface,

who is a blue fox...with a scar. You could have guessed that right? So more animals are killed again. This didn't really bother me so much but it was shocking at times.

The 3rd series I'm not too familiar with but I think it has something to do with rats invading White Deer park and yet more animals die again. I only caught a few episodes of the 3rd season, by then I was growing out of it. However I will always have fond memories of the first two.

I loved the cartoon that much that I collected the comics released and limited edition action figures of the animals that were advertised in the comic. These came in a cool display box and I still have them all in the attic. Maybe I should play with them tonight? Or maybe not...but I did have a lot of fun with them in the past.

Needless to say this cartoon will always be a fond memory of my childhood!

You can check out the intro here: