Revival
Although the original Rainbow ended with the loss of Thames' broadcasting licence in 1992, Tetra Films (an independent production company spawned by Thames' children's department) revived it for ITV in 1994 and 1995 (two series, 33 episodes in total). The new version of the show departed from the original format, centred on the slightly redesigned puppet characters - without a presenter - running a toy shop. A new character was introduced, a Scouse-sounding blue rabbit named Cleo (voiced by Gillian Robic). Geoffrey Hayes claims to have heard the news of his 'sacking' from the tabloids, rather than from Tetra: "I was shocked really, and for a couple of days I thought it was just me who had been dropped. But then Rod, Jane and Freddy had already left and of course Roy had now been dropped too, the guy playing Bungle - he was history, as was the puppeteer doing George - only Zippy's puppeteer was left. Ronnie Le Drew who also voiced Zippy for the new Tetra series; I discovered later, had auditioned for it. Bungle looked different too, though Zippy and George looked much the same".
A second revival, in 1996, saw a return to something like the original format in a series of short 10-minute shows entitled Rainbow Days, presented by Dale Superville, which ran to only one series of 12 episodes. Both were produced in association with HTV. A comic based on the latter series, also titled Rainbow Days, ran for a handful of issues in 1997.
Episodes of the original Rainbow, dating from the early 1980s, were shown sporadically on the UK satellite TV channel Nick Jr. (and/or its sister channel, Nick Jr 2) in the late 2000s as part of its Nick Jr. Classics re-runs. A previous repeat run took place on UK Gold (now Gold) from its launch in November 1992 to 1994; these were mostly from the last three years of the programme (without Rod, Jane and Freddy). There are also numerous episodes on the video viewing website, YouTube.
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