Alphablocks

Alphablocks
Genre	Learning Pre-School
Written by	Max Allen Joe Elliot Neil Richards Maurice Suckling
Voices of	Teresa Gallagher David Holt Lizzie Waterworth
Composer(s)	Ben Lee-Delisle
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	92 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Rebecca Shallcross Joe Elliot
Producer(s)	Sioned Wyn Roberts
Running time	3 minutes (series 1) 5 minutes (series 2–4)
Production company(s)	Alphablocks Ltd
Release
Original network	CBeebies
Picture format	Widescreen
Original release	25 January 2010
External links
Website
Production website

Alphablocks is a British CGI-animated children's educational television programme that tries to teach children how to spell with the use of animated blocks representing each letter. It is animated by Blue-Zoo and produced by Alphablocks Ltd.^[1] Once the Alphablocks discover that whenever they make a word it comes to life, many new adventures in Alphaland can be created. This is meant to help preschool children with learning the alphabet, spelling, reading and writing.

Characters

Letter	Age	Main Color	Information
A	7 (Seasons 1 to 4) Unknown (Currently)	Light and dark green	She likes to sing and help the other vowels. She has a plaster on her cheek and apples keep falling on her head. In "Prank" she discovered a red clown nose and played jokes on all of the other Alphablocks. Her voice actor, Max Charles, replaced Lizzie Waterworth with her new voice.
B	7	Light blue	She plays the bass guitar and is D's younger sister.
C	4	Red and white with blue stars	The only letter who performs stunts. She wears goggles and makes cracks. She is K's younger sister. She often worries why she's even a letter because she makes the same sound as K. She has a Magnolian accent, despite her voice actress, Kuchi Braaso, being British.
D	8	Purple	He is a proper cube shape and he plays the drums. He is B's older brother.
E	4 (Seasons 1 to 4) Unknown (Currently)	Red	He is the busiest letter in the alphabet. His 'eh's echo from the loudhailer he uses. He also becomes Magic E who is red with a top hat and a black ninja outfit to make the other vowels say their names. There is also Silent E. He has the same look as Magic E, but he doesn't have a top hat. In "Sleep" all he wanted to do is to rest his sleepy head, but the other Alphablocks had other plans in mind. He wears yellow swimming costume.
F	4	Purple	She is into floating and blowing. She is designed like an astronaut with a small life-support backpack. She can fly about in air or in space. Her 'ffff' sound is used to represent the sound of a rocket-pack attached to her.
G	4	Green	She looks like a plant with flowers on her sides and grassy hair. Sometimes she drinks water, and when that happens her hair grows.
H	4	Yellow and red	She likes to run, but she can get tired when running. Her 'h-h-h-h' sound is panting.
I	5	Fuchsia	Her singing can be too loud sometimes but the Alphablocks really like her singing. She is also self-absorbed and thinks she is the most important letter (reflecting the use of 'I' to refer to oneself, or the first person).
J	4	Blue and white with orange 'beak'	She looks like a penguin, but thinks she is a jay bird. She thinks she can sing and fly like a real jay.
K	4	Chartreuse	He likes to kick his football. He is C's older brother.
L	16	Lilac-pink with greensocks	She loves to sing songs with her L sound. She sings a special lullaby to help the others get to sleep.
M	Unknown	White with blue feet	He is dressed up as a chef and likes to eat things (even stuff that is not food) which makes him quite greedy. This can irritate the other Alphablocks.
N	7	Vermilion	He is quite stubborn and negative. He says 'No' even when the answer is yes. In "Ants", A, P, T, and S were blaming him for nothing, which made him very upset. In "Little Red N" he faced a challenge when the dog, the cat, and the pig refused to help him make bread out of wheat.
O	2	Orange	He does not speak and only communicates via the onomatopoeia "Baa". He likes to investigate lots of things with his magnifying glass.
P	14	Bright green, blue and purple with white stars and dark green shoes	She can appear and disappear by making a popping noise and it can scare the others when they are busy. She appears to be a pixie. She is very sweet and loves to helps her friends.
Q	Unknown	Green with indigo hair	She is an old green woman who dresses like a queen and wants to be quite quarrelling. She is also in love with U which is who she also needs to make her "qu" or "q" sound, but he always runs away.
R	12	Red and black	She looks like a pirate (reflecting the stereotypical "arrrrrr" pirate exclamation), and she has a tomboy personality.
S	10	Red, white, blue, orange, green, and yellow	She resembles a beach ball. She can inflate and deflate and fly about.
T	Unknown	Dark blue	He wears a monocle and has a white moustache. He really likes drinking tea. He says "t, t" when he is out of tea. He is one of the consonants who appears a lot. (In fact, he is the second most busy Alphablock in Alphaland.) He refers to his name as Tea.
U	9	Light blue with purple shoes	He wears square glasses and is quite moody. He always runs away from Q (probably because she wants to be quite quarrelling). He usually say words like "unfair" or "unbelievable". His voice actor, Max Charles, replaced David Holt with his new voice.
V	Unknown	Red and white	He is designed as a racing driver who is very fast with his steering wheel and has feathers on his arms. His 'v-v-v' sound is his "vroom".
W	6	Indigo	He cries when he gets hurt or when he is upset, causing floods everywhere. His 'w-w-w' sound is wailing. He refers to his name as his sound.
X	Unknown	Gold and blue with white socks	He is the superhero and has X-ray vision. He also becomes Plusman when his letter shape goes all wonky turning it into a plus sign by accident and he turns red with a different personality. He then has the power to make compound words - putting 2 little words together into 1 whole big word. In "Plusman" he shows how he became Plusman with his laser by rotating his X the same way his letter shape did and made the compound word 'lunchbox'.
Y	4	Yellow	He is the youngest Alphablock besides O and the only consonant which can make a semivowel sound (see Series 1, Episode 4). He perseveres even if he has trouble doing things.
Z	Unknown	Lime green	He is the oldest Alphablock with a walking stick (cane) and can sleep almost anywhere (reflecting the "zzz" sound commonly used to represent the sound of sleeping or snoring in comics).

Other characters

• Girl
• Cowboy
• Singing Cow
• Josie
• Jared
• Justin

Aired episodes

Series 1

Series 1 originally ran in the UK from January to February 2010.^[2]

1. Alphablocks (Pilot)
2. Bee
3. Top
4. Why
5. Key
6. Glow
7. Sing
8. Band
9. Party
10. Cha Cha Cha
11. Race
12. Moon
13. Alphalympics
14. Sail
15. UFO
16. Fox
17. Surprise
18. Bus
19. Space
20. Hide
21. Quiet
22. Map
23. Jaybird
24. Note
25. Zzzzz
26. Magic (Magic E's song)

The episode UFO has some short amusing reflections on Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Series 2

Series 2 originally ran in the UK from February to March 2012.^[2]

1. Taps
2. In
3. Man
4. Din
5. Dog
6. Cat
7. Pen
8. Up
9. Red
10. Hen
11. Bop
12. Fred
13. Hill
14. Van
15. Zap
16. Dot
17. Lips
18. Web
19. Box
20. Quick
21. Kick
22. Wig
23. Rainbow
24. On
25. ABC
26. The Cat Sat on The Mat

^[3]

Series 3

Series 3 originally aired from October 2012 - March 2013

1. Wish
2. Snowman
3. Win
4. Hat
5. Little Red N
6. Dots
7. Frog on a Dog
8. Best
9. Fit
10. Odd
11. Champ
12. Song
13. Thing
14. Train
15. Beep
16. Tightrope
17. Toad
18. Book
19. Hey!
20. Card
21. The End
22. How Now, Brown Cow?
23. Fair
24. Ants
25. Ink
26. Crash!

Series 4

Series 4 began in the UK in June 2013 to November 2016^[2]

1. Four
2. Clap
3. Prank^{[note 1]}
4. Plusman
5. Alphabet
6. Name
7. Sleep
8. Mine
9. Home
10. Blue
11. Outlaw
12. Birthday Girl
13. Cowboy
14. Duloc Dolls

^[4]

US Version

It is hopeful that there will be a version of the show in the United States, however it is unknown.

Notes

1. (originally shown on 16 November 2012 as part of Children in Need 2012)

References

1. "Alphablocks". Blue Zoo Animation Studio.
2. "Alphablocks". tvdb.
3. "Episodes from Alphablocks: Series 2 broadcast in 2012". BBC. 2012. Retrieved 10 April 2012.
4. http://www.locatetv.com/tv/alphablocks/6597412/episode-guide

External links

• Official website