The Wombles are likely to return to our screens in the near future, with a remake in the works.
The children’s TV show, which aired from 1973 to 1975, featured the titular pointy-nosed, fuzzy critters that dwell in the burrow on Wimbledon Common in London and protect the environment by collecting and recycling trash in inventive ways.
Originally featured in a series of children’s novels written by Elisabeth Beresford beginning in 1968, numerous spin-off novelty songs scored hits in the British music charts while the show was on the air.
Further episodes of the series aired in 1998 and 1999, and while further 52 CGI animated episodes were scheduled to run beginning in 2015, just two were ever seen.
It was remastered earlier this year to commemorate the show’s 50th anniversary.
However, it has recently been rumoured that a contemporary remake is in the works.
Altitude Television, the producer of The Ipcress File, is working on the latest remake.
According to Deadline, the ‘new version’ of the iconic cartoon series is being co-produced with The Wombles production firm and penned by Will Davies of How to Train Your Dragon.
The publication said Altitude ‘didn’t elaborate further on how it will be modernising the classic’.
Guided by the motto ‘make good use of bad rubbish’, The Wombles picked up whatever humans had discarded on the Common and tried to turn it into something useful.
Beresford came up with the concept for the Wombles while on a Boxing Day stroll with her children, Kate and Marcus, the former of whom failed to pronounce Wimbledon Common correctly and would refer to it as Wombledon.
Marcus Robertson stated earlier this year that the green message was unintentional but served to give his mother’s figures modern-day resonance.
‘When mum wrote this, the reason they focused on clearing up was because we were on Wimbledon Common and there was rubbish,’ he told The Mirror.
‘She didn’t do it with a massive green message in mind because that sort of thinking didn’t exist. She did it because she cared about her surroundings and hated that humans left so much mess. She was very ahead of her time.
‘Everything they wear, everything they use in the burrow has been discarded by humans. She was also from the war generation and hated wasting anything.’
Speaking about a possible TV comeback, he said the characters were ‘enduring’ because their values of cleaning up after humans and being respectful was ‘so relevant today’.
