Bob and Margaret

Bob and Margaret is a Canadian/UK animated television series that was also shown in the United States and all over the world. The series was produced by Nelvana, a Toronto animation studio, and created by Canadian David Fine and Brit Alison Snowden. The series was based on the Academy Award winning short film Bob's Birthday, featuring the same main characters, which won the Best Animated Short Film Oscar in 1994. The series is one of the few Canadian TV shows to ever have regular American exposure. In Canada, it was the highest rated Canadian made animation series ever when it aired in prime time on Global Television.

The show revolved around a married English couple named Bob and Margaret Fish, a middle class 40-ish working couple with no children and two dogs named William and Elizabeth. Bob is a dentist and Margaret is a chiropodist. Bob and Margaret struggle with everyday issues and mid life crisis. Stories often revolve around the mundane, but in a way which is eminently relatable. From the trials of shopping to dealing with friends who annoy them, but owe them a dinner.

In the first two seasons, Bob and Margaret lived in England, in the South London community of Balham. For the third and fourth seasons, however, they moved to Toronto, Canada, allowing the writers to explore the humour of culture clash. The move was actually inspired by the realities of funding, with certain Canadian tax benefits dependent on stories actually based in Canada. As such, to keep the series funded, the move was necessary. The creators of the series (real-life husband-and-wife David Fine and Alison Snowden) chose to take an executive role on these latter two seasons, reviewing scripts and consulting, but not involved in the detail they were for the first two seasons. Snowden continued to provide the voice of Margaret, but Bob's voice, originally played by Andy Hamilton, was replaced by Brian George.

The programme was shown in the United Kingdom on Channel 4 and Ftn, in the United States on Comedy Central, and in Germany and France on Arte. Comedy Central only showed the two "London" seasons. The third and fourth "Toronto" seasons were eventually shown (almost 2 years after Comedy Central showed the last second season episode) on the Showtime cable channel; they currently rerun all four seasons on their specialty "Showtime Women" channel.

Bob and Margaret currently airs on Adult Swim Latin America and formerly on Canada's YTV. Cartoon Network Brasil airs its four seasons on the Adult Swim program. The London seasons also get shown in the UK, currently on Channel 4.

The second series can be found on Region 1 NTSC DVDs in Canada and Region 2 PAL DVDs in the UK. Season one can be found on VHS in PAL (at least in the UK) and NTSC (at least in Canada), and the DVD is due for release in Canada in February 2010 as an NTSC Region 1 Set.