| Genre: | Animated Puppetoon children's television series |
| Creator: | La Parti / Pic Pic André |
| Voices: | French/Belgian version: Bruce Ellison Stéphane Aubier Vincent Patar Didier Odieu Benoît Poelvoorde English version: Alexander Armstrong David Holt Alan Marriott Lucy Montgomery John Sparkes |
| Country: | Belgium |
| Language: | French |
| Num Series: | 1 |
| Num Episodes: | 20 |
| List Episodes: | List of episodes of A Town Called Panic |
| Producer: | Vincent Patar and Stéphane Aubier |
| Runtime: | 5 minutes |
A Town Called Panic (French: Panique au village, "Panic at the village") is a 2002-2003 French-language Belgian stop-motion sitcom created by Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar for La Parti and Pic Pic André. It follows the everyday events of the characters Cowboy, Indian and Horse who live together in a small rural town as they go about their lives. The animation is designed to appear crude, as if done by a child (the characters evoke the look of cheap toy figurines) and the events of the characters' daily lives are extremely surreal and slapstick.
The first Panique au village was a 4-minute short film premiered in 1991.[1] Its concept was developed into a television series, which was first broadcast from 2002 to 2003 and consists of 20 episodes each of roughly 5 minutes long (though some stations have broadcast them in 15- or 30-minute blocks). An English-language dub of the television series episodes was created and sold internationally by Aardman Animations.
Since then, a spinoff feature film, again titled A Town Called Panic, was completed in spring 2009 and debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May of the same year.[2] In 2013, the half-hour Christmas special "The Christmas Log" was made, which received an English dub that aired on CBBC in 2014 under the title "A Christmas Panic". The English dub for this special used different voice actors than the dub for the original series. In 2016 a new 3-minute short "The Noise of Grey"[3] and later a second-half-hour special "Back to School!" were premiered, and a package film of "The Christmas Log" and "Back to School!" was released to cinemas worldwide under the name A Town Called Panic: Double Fun. A new short came out in 2019 The County Fair
A Town Called Panic has been seen worldwide on channels such as ABC Rollercoaster in Australia, Nicktoons Network in the United States, EBS in South Korea, and Teletoon in Canada, and it was available online at Atom Films.
In the UK, A Town Called Panic aired on Nickelodeon. Much of the characters and scenery were later recycled for the Cravendale Milk adverts (2007–2010) using a Pirate, a Cow and a bicyclist as the characters.
This is the list of major characters in the original 20-episode run, with short descriptions.
Cowboy is a toy figurine of a cowboy in a blue shirt and brown leather trousers, with a hat and, most of the time, a rifle. Cowboy is rather cowardly and not really bright, often getting himself into bad situations through his recklessness and childish behaviour. He has something of a sibling rivalry with Indian (though they most likely aren't really related), and is intimidated by Horse.
Indian is a toy figurine of a stereotypical Native American tribal chief or elder, in a yellow shirt and brown leather trousers, with an elaborate and large feather headdress. He carries a ceremonial staff. Besides the usual standing position he is often seen in a Native American-style meditative pose. Other times he carries a bow and arrow. Indian is a little more mature than Cowboy, but still pursues foolhardy quests almost as much as his counterpart. He is also somewhat fearful of Horse. In the Christmas Special's English dub, his name is changed to Chief.
Horse is a toy figurine of a brown horse. Although an animal, Horse is easily as intelligent as Cowboy and Indian (put together) and is the leader of the "family" he, Cowboy and Indian are part of. Even though he walks on all fours, he does most of the chores around their house, as both his charges are domestically useless. He maintains a cool head, doesn't engage in the foolish pursuits of Cowboy and Indian and keeps a semblance of normality in the house. When Cowboy and/or Indian infuriate him, he kicks them (presumably with his hind legs) all over the house and usually into one of the walls, which is sufficient to keep the two in line most of the time. In the film, his birthday is 21 June.
A farmer who owns the only other house in the village. Constantly yells, even when not angry, and is very possessive of his tractor.
Steven's loving wife.
Steven and Jeanine's daughter
Lives in a guard shack by the side of the road that passes through the village.
The animals on Steven's farm.
This is a figurine of a black bear on its hind legs that chases many of the characters quite frequently, usually after having been disturbed by them from his sleep. It is never made clear if it is the same bear or a different one every time, though they all look the same.
A hunter obviously parodied from the original Robin Hood stories. He is a peckish and sometimes extremely careless hunter who lives in a caravan in the woods. He can be recognised by his long blond hair, his green hunting clothes and his posh English accent, he carries an archery kit around with him.
Simon is a citizen with orange hair, a green shirt, blue denim jeans and black boots, he lives alone in a strangely small shed that gets knocked down by Stevens red tractor in the episode "Cowboy goes Hunting". Simon is a fairly friendly man who occasionally appears in episodes, Simon is on neutral terms with Cowboy, Indian and Horse, never causing conflict with them. Simon is often shown doing odd jobs for Cowboy and Indian including managing the sound effects with Horse and Chicken in the episode "The Play", Simon lights a fire next to the microphone to give the illusion that Cowboy is about to get burnt alive in the play but the fire gets out of control and out of stress Simon faints and everyone has to evacuate the building (Jenanine and Steven's barn), the barn completely burns down.
Up to 24 November 2011, 20 episodes of "A Town Called Panic" had been made.
In the United States and Canada, the original 20 television episodes, the 2014 special "The Christmas Log",[4] the 2016 short "The Noise of Grey"[5] and the 2016 special "Back to School!"[6] were released together on Blu-ray Disc (no DVD version has been released) under the title A Town Called Panic: The Collection by GKIDS on 19 December 2017. They have also released the series and specials (but not "The Noise of Grey") on video on demand services.[7]