| Genre: | Family Puppetry Children's television series Educational |
| Creator: | Catherine Kirkwood and Nick Wilson |
| Director: | Adrian Hedley Catherine Kirkwood Nick Wilson |
| Creative Director: | Nikky Smedley |
| Starring: | Brian Cant Marcus Clarke Helena Smee Sally Preisig David Alan Barclay Joe Greco Katherine Smee Dave Taylor Tim Jones Geoff Felix Nick Wilson |
| Composer: | Peter Gosling |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Num Series: | 5 |
| Company: | Clear Idea Television United Productions (1998-1999) |
| Channel: | TV-am (ITV) (1990-1992) Channel 5 (1998-1999) |
Dappledown Farm is a British children's television programme, starring and presented by Brian Cant and a series of puppets. It began airing on 11th March 1990 on TV-am[1] until 27th December 1992[2] and was originally broadcast on Sunday mornings. After TVAM's closure, the re-runs were broadcast on The Children's Channel in 1993[3] before it was later moved to Channel 5's Milkshake! in 1997[4] when the series got rebooted in 1998.
Despite the fact that production of the show stopped in 1999, it was still shown in repeats until November 2004.[5]
In the show's narrative, Cant's character Brian was the owner of the Dappledown Farm. For each episode, he introduced feature cartoons from a studio farm set.[6] For example, in the first episode, Brian told the story of animals on the farm that hatched from an egg such as birds, snakes, and tortoises.[7] In addition to the puppets, the show also integrated stories that involve real-life animals.
Puppet characters in the show included: Dapple the Horse; Mabel the Cow; Stubble and Straw, the two mice; Columbus the Cockerel; Lucky Ducky; Colin the Coot; Millie the Moorhen; Fiona the Frog; and Harry the Heron. These characters had different personalities that range from mischievous to bashful.[8] For this reason, there are times when they quarrel with each other and Brian the farmer served as the mediator.
The puppets were created by the Hands Up Puppets company.[9]
• Dappledown Farm 1: Water Everywhere & Columbus Under the Weather
▪ Dappledown Farm 2: Senses & Forgetful Brian