Ouraine (TV series)

Ouraine is a Kuboian animated television series based on the book series of the same name by Ruth Tucker. The show ran for two series from 1995 to 1998, with the first airing on Bumper's Block and the second airing on Tiny Vision.

Premise and format
The show centres around Ouraine, an upbeat and funky nine year-old girl who lives with her parents and twin sister Juliet in a vibrant urban village. With her friends and family, she has many adventures that typically involve her using her imagination to come up with solutions to problems.

Each twenty three-minute episode is often divided into three different segments; two stories that last approximately nine or ten minutes, and a musical number performed by Ouraine which the other characters are seen listening (and occasionally dancing) to. The show's music generally consists of funky hip-hop and R&B songs. Compared to other animated series airing on Bumper's Block in the 1990s, Ouraine is more down-to-earth and upbeat.

Cast and characters
Other characters on the show were played by Lilian Pond and Jack Carole.
 * Emily Merletta as Ouraine, a cheerful and imaginative nine year-old.
 * Denise Chevrolet as Juliet, Ouraine's twin sister. She is not as outgoing as her sister, instead showing a more soft-spoken side, showing a lot of passion for people and things she cares for deeply but often being reluctant to try new things.
 * Millie Tucker as Ouraine's mother.
 * Darren Marion as Ouraine's father.

Production
Ouraine entered production around mid-1993. Creator Ruth Tucker was initially sceptical about making the series over fears it would be "commercialised" and ruin the charm of the original book series. She stated in an interview "Kuboian children's programmes were often very dark and dramatic. I didn't want the show to be incredibly depressing and serious, I wanted it to stand out." To help the show stand out from the other Bumper's Block original programmes, she decided to use a 'two shorts' format and incorporate music into the show's theme.

Chloe Wallace composed the show's hip-hop and dance-pop-orientated soundtrack, which included several rap songs performed by Emily Merletta. Wallace listened to American hip hop groups such as N.W.A, Run-DMC and Salt-N-Pepa for influence, as well as the "Pingu Dance" by David Hasselhoff from the Swedish stop-motion series Pingu. When a pilot episode for the show was produced in 1994, it featured Ouraine skipping down a street with the instrumental version of N.W.A's 1989 single "Express Yourself" playing in the background. Wallace wanted to sample a hip-hop song for the show's soundtrack, but was advised not to by Tucker, who was worried about clearing the samples and getting attacked by the hip-hop community for "kiddie-fying" songs from their favourite rappers.

Ouraine was one of the first Kuboian animated series to depict characters living in an urban setting in contrast to a rural or fantasty setting. It was also one of the first animated series to use digital ink.

Broadcast
After the show came to an end, reruns continued to air on KT until 2007. The show also aired on Nick Jr. Kuboia from 1996 until 2004.

Ouraine also saw airings in several countries worldwide. In the United Kingdom, it aired on CBBC from 1995 to 2001, CBeebies from 2002 to 2004 and Tiny Pop from 2004 to 2007. The show also aired on ABC in Australia, CBC in Canada, Super RTL and Junior in Germany and Nederland 3 in the Netherlands. In the United States, Ouraine aired on The Disney Channel as part of its Playhouse Disney programming block from 1997 to 2001.

In some international versions, only one story is shown under a ten or fifteen minute timeslot.

Home media
Vision Video released Ouraine on a multitude of VHS tapes in the mid and late 1990s. These typically featured two episodes (four stories) each.

From 2002 to 2004, the show was released on DVD in Region 2 in seven volumes, each with three or four episodes.

Music
The single "Ouraine's Dance" by Emily Merletta was released as a single on 25th February, 1996. This was later followed by an album, Ouraine: The Album, on 10th March that year.

Toys
A moderate amount of merchandise based off Ouraine was released in the late 1990s. An inflatable playset featuring Ouraine and Juliet was released in 1996. The show also spawned an educational CD-ROM in early 1997.

Spin-offs
After Ouraine ended its run, the show's writer Hollis Davies created two shows with similar premises; Olly in 2002 and Melanie in 2005. Ouraine and some of the other characters make cameo appearances in both shows. Davies considers the three shows part of the "Heatherwood" trilogy, with its name deriving from the setting's name in Olly.