| Alt Name: | The Gublin Legends |
| Creator: | Gordon Murray |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Num Series: | 1 |
| Num Episodes: | 13 |
| Runtime: | 5 minutes |
| Network: | BBC One |
The Gublins (also known as The Gublin Legends[1]) is a stop-motion children's television show broadcast between 1977 and 1979. It was the final animated series made by British animator Gordon Murray, the creator of Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley[2] and was shown as part of the Saturday morning children's TV show Multi-Coloured Swap Shop on BBC One.[3] Each episode was 5 minutes long with Murray introducing each one directly to camera.
The series related various folk tales told in verse.[4] The Gublins themselves were chimp-like creations[5] (the word "Gublin" is a pun on the humanoid creature "goblin") that featured in a series of Tall Stories, narrated in rhyming couplets to a simple acoustic soundtrack provided by Freddie Phillips.
There were thirteen episodes filmed although only twelve are known by name.[6] The folk tales came from a variety of traditions, including Cornish, Bohemian and Arabic sources. The first episode, Obadiah and Flo, was broadcast on 24 December 1977.[7] The named episode titles are:
Three of these stories appeared in the BBC Swap Shop Books (2,3 & 4) as photostories. There were also five photostory books published separately titled "Young Gublins Picture Storybooks". They were completely new stories called:
A VHS entitled "Children's Seventies TV Favourites" featuring episodes of The Gublins was released by Contender studios in 1998.