Modern Use
Camberwick Green was spoofed for a 1988 edition of Spitting Image, as "Gamberwick Greenbelt". The 90-second sketch had a puppet Nicholas Ridley, described as "Old Nicky Ridley, the village idiot", demolishing the village for redevelopment with the aid of a bulldozer.
The character Windy Miller and his famous windmill appeared in September 2005 along with some other Camberwick Green characters in commercials for Quaker Oats on UK television. The puppets and setting are all re-creations because Murray destroyed the originals in the 1970s. The original narrator, Brian Cant, auditioned to do the voiceover for the commercials, before the job was instead given to Charlie Higson.
Episode five of the second series of the BBC's Life on Mars features a recreation of the opening of Camberwick Green, with a puppet of the show's main character, Sam Tyler (John Simm), emerging from the musical box and despairing over his colleague, Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister), who can be seen in puppet form "kicking in a nonce" at the end. This later leads to Sam to threaten Hunt, telling him to "Stay out of Camberwick Green!". It emerges that Sam is tripping after being accidentally overdosed in his hospital bed. Again the voice-over was not supplied by Brian Cant, but is delivered in a similar style. It differs from the original by saying: "This is a box, a magical box, playing a magical tune. But inside this box there lies a surprise. Do you know who's in it today?"
The narration was provided by Brian Little, the co-founder of Hot Animation, the company that created the sequence. His recording was supposed to be a temporary guide track to help the animators time the shots, but the producers of Life on Mars were content to retain it for the final version. The one-minute sequence was designed and animated by Paul Couvela, the supervising animator of Bob the Builder.
Chippy Minton features in the opening and closing sequences of the 2009 BBC Children in Need charity single Peter Kay's "Animated All Star Band" video when Peter Kay as Roary the Racing Car's Big Chris asks Postman Pat over the phone if Chippy is "ex-directory". Big Chris acts in a 'Bob Geldof' role to recruit characters from children's TV shows, past and present, to star in a Band Aid style video covering a range of songs by the Beatles to Take That. Windy Miller and Miss Lovelace also appear.
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Famous quotes containing the word modern:
“The opera isn’t over till the fat lady sings.”
—Anonymous.
A modern proverb along the lines of “don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.” This form of words has no precise origin, though both Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (16th ed., 1992)
“The higher processes are all processes of simplification. The novelist must learn to write, and then he must unlearn it; just as the modern painter learns to draw, and then learns when utterly to disregard his accomplishment, when to subordinate it to a higher and truer effect.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)