SuperTed - Creation

Creation

'SuperTed' was created by Mike Young in 1978 for his son to help him overcome his fear of the dark. Later Mike decided to put the stories into book form. Superted originally was a bear from the woods who was also afraid of the dark, until one day Mother Nature give him a magic word which gives him Superpowers and transform him to SuperTed. After a while, Mike started to write actual story books about SuperTed. Then after some unsuccessful attempts, he was able to get his book published by a local printer. This led Mike to a successful career, writing and publishing over 100 SuperTed books, with illustrations done by Philip Watkins, until 1990. Just after his first book was published, his wife suggested he should produce a stuffed toy version of SuperTed which was done in 1980.

The process also drew the attention of Warner Brothers in 1980 who made an offer of £250,000 for the film rights. Mike was determined to keep SuperTed Welsh, as he wanted to help create local jobs and prove places outside London had talent. In 1981, S4C enquired about making Superted into animations, but Mike decided to create Siriol Productions to produce the series himself. Siriol management wished to create SuperTed in a way which their own kids could be proud of, free from facile plots and hard line violence. This concept continued to be adopted to all series made by Siriol, which proves soft edge and quality animation can be more appealing to children than any amount of violence. Superted was also turned into a stage show. Melvyn Hayes reprised his role but other parts were taken by other actors. Superted's popularity even led to the production of a line of vitamin supplements for children.

In 1989 Mike Young sold the rights to SuperTed to Abbey home media.