Blue Owl

Blue Owl (originally aired as Blue Owl Stories) is a Kuboian traditionally animated children's television series produced by 32B Entertainment. It aired on Vision Network's Saturday evening programming strand Bumper's Block, and twenty three episodes over two series were produced for the show. Series 1 had twelve episodes and premiered in early 1994, whilst series 2 had eleven episodes and premiered in early 1995. Despite only having two series and twenty three episodes, the show is fondly remembered and was repeated on Kuboian television for over a decade, with reruns continuing to air on KT until late 2008.

During its premiere, Blue Owl was distributed by Crayon Media, which held rights for the show until it disolved in December 2009. The rights have since transferred over to TVVC themselves.

Premise
Taking place in Wild Woods, a fictional forest-like area, in the area's largest tree live Orson "Blue Owl" Twitter and his mother, who sleep during the day and wake up during the night. During the daytime, the animals who reside in Wild Woods regularly face problems and/or conflicts which they have trouble resolving. When night falls, however, Blue Owl wakes up and helps his friends when they most need it.

Cast and characters
All of the show's characters consist of anthropomorphic talking animals who live in the show's forst environment Wild Woods. However, not all of the animals who appear on the show live in forests in real life.


 * The main characters of the show, the Twitter family, consist of Orson "Blue Owl" and his single mother Oakley, who are both light blue owls that often sleep during the day in their giant treehouse and are awake throughout the night. The two both spend most of their time helping the others who are still awake and active with the tasks that they are struggling with. They occasionally feel like their routine gets in the way of enjoying their life to their fullest potential, but end up sticking with it anyway. Blue Owl is voiced by Jack Carole, whilst Oakley is voiced by Millie Tucker.
 * Blue Owl also has two pets that occasionally accompany him; a firefly called Fly and a grasshopper called Hopper. Unlike the other characters, they cannot talk but understand vocal language and can make sound effects. They are both voiced by Henry Buckings.
 * The Mackell family, consiting of brown rabbits, is run by Mishelle, who acts as the "janitor" of Wild Woods, cleaning up any mess left by the citizens. She is often seen as lazy and ill-tempered, frequently complaining about her job. The other members of the family include the daughter Manica, the stay-at-home father, Maddox and the family's snake pet/foster child Cola, who all often have trouble working out how to spend their day. Mishelle is voiced by Millie Tucker, whilst Manica and Cola are voiced by Esther Redbarron and Maddox is voiced by Theo Claes.
 * A coyote couple, the Fritz family, are seen occasionally, with Mr. Fritz working as a porter of sorts for Wild Woods. They seem to be shy and secretive, and only reluctantly interact with the others on occasions. Neither of the two's names are ever revealed. Mrs. Fritz is voiced by Charlie Karma, and Mr. Fritz is voiced by Theo Claes.

Broadcast history
Blue Owl premiered on Bumper's Block on 15th January, 1994, airing on Saturday evenings at 7:30p.m. After the first series ended on 2nd April that year, it was reran on the strand again in September before the second series premiered for its Christmas special on 17th December. The remaining ten episodes of series two aired in the same 7:30p.m. time slot on Saturdays from 14th January to 18th March, 1995. After the show ended production, it continued airing on Bumper's Block throughout 1996 and 1997, typically during the 9:30p.m. slot.

During the mid and late 1990s, Blue Owl also aired on Vision 1's unbranded children's programming strand in the mornings. In 1998, the show was moved to KT, where it continued airing until its closure in November 2008.

When the show was originally aired on Bumper's Block, it was aired under the title Blue Owl Stories. However, when it was released on home media and started airing on KT, it started to air as simply Blue Owl.

Production
Dominic Halls, who was the chairman of TVVC's Children's Department at the time, was pressuring Bumper's Block to produce more original programming in order to avoid paying for too many acquired programmes and to "increase Kuboian cultural awareness in animation".

The series began production in 1992. It was created by German-Dutch producer Melony Claes, who originally created the show centred around an owahockoot, though the character was changed to an owl in order for non-Kuboian audiences to understand him more. Blue Owl's real name Orson Twitter was based off Claes' pet goldfish she had as a child. A lot of the recurring characters meanwhile were named after key people the production team knew in their childhoods.

Blue Owl was one of the last Kuboian animated series to use traditional ink, as animation studios in the country had almost entirely switched to digital ink by the mid-1990s.

Legacy
Open Eagle has praised Blue Owl in several of its articles, stating once in 2018 that "despite not being incredibly action-packed or unorthodox like The Incredible World of Riddles or Magma Eye, it still pleases audience with its entertaining cast of characters, vibrant animation style and simple yet appealing storylines". KantasyDream.net ranked the show as one of the best cartoons of the 1990s.

In recent years, Blue Owl's full name, Orson Twitter, has provoked comical responses in the media due to the character sharing his surname with a popular social media website which launched over a decade after the show ended production. In 2010, Melony Claes said that she regretted not trademarking the Twitter name.

The KT co-mascot and puppet character Orange the Owl, who was created by Ericka Streets and debuted in 2002, was inspired by Blue Owl.

International broadcasts
Blue Owl was sold to and has aired on several children's television channels worldwide.

It aired on TVOKids in Canada, France 3 in France and TVNZ 2 in New Zealand.

In the United Kingdom, the show aired on CBBC from late 1994 to December 2001. It later aired on CBeebies in reruns from February 2002 until June 2004 and Tiny Pop from 2004 to 2010.

VHS releases
Blue Owl was released in the mid-1990s on five VHS tapes, which each had four episodes. These were released by Vision Video in Kuboia and BBC Video in the United Kingdom.
 * Blue Owl: The Midnight Feast and other stories - released October 1995
 * Blue Owl: The Great Egg Hunt and other stories - released April 1996
 * Blue Owl: The Paper Chase and other stories - released October 1996
 * Blue Owl: The Wild Woods Theatre and other stories - released March 1997
 * Blue Owl: The Missing Monkey and other stories - released September 1997

DVD releases
Later, in the mid-2000s, two DVDs which contained all episodes of each of the two series were released in Region 2.
 * Blue Owl: The Complete First Series - released 7th April, 2003
 * Blue Owl: The Complete Second Series - released 23rd February, 2004