Fimbles

Fimbles is a British television programme designed for pre-school children. The Fimbles are Fimbo, Florrie and Baby Pom, who all live in a bright, lush and colourful place called Fimble Valley. Fimbles is produced by Novel Entertainment who created the characters. These Fimbles are magical.

The snouted and concentrically-ringed appearance of the Fimbles was based on the eponymous villains of Lucy Anna and the Finders, written and illustrated by Sarah Hayes. Although Hayes is cited in the credits of Fimbles, and she was involved in adapting the characters for the television series, the implacably omnivorous Finders (who, throughout the book, threaten to eat Lucy Anna) have nothing else in common with the Fimbles.

The scripts of the 200 episodes were written by a number of writers, most notably the programme's producer Lucinda Whiteley. The Fimbles are cuddly, hippo like creatures and are portrayed by 'skin' actors in complex, fluffy animatronic suits and all look quite similar apart from their colour and size. Fimbo is yellow with green stripes, is the tallest and likes to eat Crumble Crackers, Florrie is blue with purple stripes, a little smaller than Fimbo and is often seen carrying a Fimble-like doll called Little One, and Baby Pom is the smallest, pink with green stripes and generally follows the others like a toddler, whilst pushing her Trundle Truck. Other characters, which are essentially large scale puppets, are a blue tree frog called Rockit (sic), a purple and green striped mole called Roly Mo, a plump and motherly pink bird called Bessie, and Bessie's chick, Ribble. Originally Ribble was an almost featureless squeaking blob of orange fur with a beak; more recently he has also had eyes.

The three Fimbles have a special "sixth sense" - when the Tinkling Tree tinkles its bell-like blossoms, it makes the nose, fingers and topknot of one or more Fimbles twitch as they get the 'Fimbling Feeling'. This tells the character(s) that they are going to find something. It may be a natural phenomenon - a patch of sunlight for example, an everyday object, e.g. a tambourine, or something which would be totally inexplicable in the real world, such as a puddle of blue "goo". Whatever is found becomes the catalyst for the episode's adventures and the trigger for the Fimbles' creative play.

Roly Mo, who has a vast underground library of books, tells a story in every episode, and either Roly Mo or Bessie give a summary at the end of the programme as to what has happened to the Fimbles that day. Live action film of real children at play also features in every episode.

There is a spin-off to Fimbles called The Roly Mo Show, starring Roly Mo and a cast of other characters including Roly's niece Little Bo. The Roly Mo Show concentrates on literacy and books and is made as an educational programme. Also devised by Novel Entertainment the programme plays daily on the CBeebies channel. The Fimbles also feature in a touring stage show for children, called Fimbles Live! which was devised by the playwright and author David Wood CBE.