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 nine 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 and series 3 had eight episodes and premiered in the autumn of 1995. Despite only having thirty one 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.

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 and his mother Oakley wake up and help their 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. No humans are seen or mentioned in any of the episodes. The show had seven voice actors; Charlie Karma, Denise White, Esther Redbarron, Henry Buckings, Jack Carole, Millie Tucker and Theo Claes.

Main characters

 * Orson "Blue Owl" Twitter - a young turquoise-coloured owl who lives in a large tree where he sleeps during the day and comes out during the night. He often spends his time helping any of his friends who are still awake with their problems. Due to his routine, Blue Owl feels like he does not get to spend as much time with his friends as he could, though is willing to find ways to work around this. He is prone to overworking himself due to his loyalty and commitment. Although he is referred to as his nickname on many official sources, the characters on the show usually refer to him as his real name.
 * Oakley - a dark blue owl and Blue Owl's single mother who voluntarily runs the Trouble Shack where people report any problems they are dealing with. She is often the one to give Blue Owl advice when he is unsure what to do.

Major characters

 * Rabbit family:
 * Mischelle - a brown rabbit who acts as Wild Woods' "janitor", and is employed by an unnamed character who is never seen or named. Responsible for keeping the woods clean, she is very ill-tempered and tries to find excuses to get out of doing her job. Despite this, she does enjoy getting help from Oakley and likes spending time with her family.
 * Maddox - Mischelle's stay-at-home husband who seems to have difficulty working out what to do when he has cleaned the house. He seems to be proudly lazy, often spending long periods of time watching TV and is often reluctant to go outside.
 * Manica - Mischelle and Maddox's daughter who is a slightly lighter colour than her parents. Much like her parents, she is very lazy and unmotivated and likes to make snarky jokes anout others with more active lifestyles. Despite this she will go out and spend time with the other children from time to time.
 * Cola - a lime green snake and Mischelle and Maddox's adoptive daughter who speaks in an Australian accent. She seems to be clingy towards Manica and always wanting to be with her.
 * Monkey family:
 * Terence - a light brown monkey who acts as a porter and delivery man for Wild Woods, and also helps to organise special events such as parties. He has a tendency to spoil his children badly.
 * Anita - Terence's mischievous daughter who spends a lot of time wandering about Wild Woods and often likes to cause trouble by playing tricks on people. She seems to have a crush on Blue Owl.
 * Neo - Terence's son and Anita's older brother, who is often seen with his younger sister. He can occasionally be snooty towards the other children.
 * Ivette - a dark brown monkey with a french accent, who debuts in the second series as Terence's new partner and Anita and Neo's stepmother.
 * Coyote family:
 * Mr. Frit - a shy light yellow coyote who runs an unnamed shop in Wild Woods, and appears to not like socialising with others despite his job requiring it. His first name is never revealed on the show.
 * Mrs. Frit - Mr. Frit's unnamed wife who likewise is shy, timid and quiet like her husband. She is often seen either helping her husband run his shop or helping Mischelle or Terence with their work.
 * Skylar - Mr. and Mrs. Frit's son who is nervous and soft spoken like his parents. He seems to have difficulty coping on situations on his own and relies heavily on others.

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. For series three, the show once again aired in the 7:30p.m. time slot with episodes premiering from 12th August to 30th September, 1995. After the show ended production, it continued airing on Bumper's Block throughout 1996 and 1997, typically during the 9:30p.m. slot.

From 1997 to 1999, reruns of Blue Owl aired on Tiny Vision. In 1999, 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 Tiny Vision and 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. A lot of the recurring characters 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.

Episode structure
Every episode of Blue Owl lasts approximately fourteen and a half minutes. The show is mostly targeted towards a younger audience, but has some humour and morals that can be appreciated by an older audience.

Each of the show's episodes has a bronze, silver and golden egg that are hidden in certain scenes. Claes says that the eggs have no meaning behind them, and that they were simply included as a bonus feature "for those with good eyes".

Despite airing in 1994, the credits of the first series display a copyright year of 1993. Similarly, the credits of the second series display a copyright year of 1994, despite airing in 1995.

Music
Musician Sidney Plasket composed the show's soundtrack, which consists of mostly folk music. The opening and credits sequence both use the same instrumental piece.

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.

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.

In the United States, Blue Owl had a dub that replaced the cast with American voice actors. This aired in syndication throughout the mid-1990s. Later, the show was rerun on Playhouse Disney from 1999 to 2002. However, Playhouse Disney used the original Kuboian version and not the American dub. As of 2022, the American dub is mostly lost, with only short clips of it available online. It is not known who voiced the characters in this dub either.

The show aired on Showcase in Canada from 1995 to 1996 and later on TVOKids from 1996 to 2003. It also aired on El TV Kadsre 1 in El Kadsre from 1995 to 2005, as well as ABC for Kids in Australia from 1995 to 2004, and TVNZ 2 in New Zealand from 1995 to 2006. However, all used the original Kuboian version instead of the American dub.

Blue Owl aired throughout Europe. It aired on France 3 in France, Super RTL in Germany, Nederland 3 in the Netherlands, TVE in Spain and SVT in Swedenm and Minimax and KidsCo in several other European countries.

In the Arab world, the show had a long run on Spacetoon, debuting on the channel in 2001 and continuing to air in regular reruns until 2013.

VHS releases
Blue Owl was released in the mid-1990s on seven VHS tapes, which each had four episodes. These were released by Vision Video in Kuboia and BBC Video in the United Kingdom.

DVD releases
Later, in the mid-2000s, two DVDs which contained all episodes of each of the two series were released in Region 2. The DVDs include a variety of special features, including audio commentary for each episode. The Complete First Series has a "Behind-the-Scenes" extra, with Melony Claes explaining how episodes were produced, whilst The Complete Second Series has a "Lost Episodes" extra in which the show's writers, producers and voice cast reveal some ideas for episodes that were never produced.
 * Blue Owl: The Complete First Series - released 7th April, 2003
 * Blue Owl: The Complete Second Series - released 23rd February, 2004
 * Blue Owl: The Complete Third Series - released 1st November, 2004

Books
From 1995 to 1997, a series of books titled Blue Owl Stories (using a different logo from the show's original broadcast title) were published throughout Europe, Canada, El Kadsreian Islands, and Australia. These featured either three or four stories based around the show's characters. A total of six books were produced.

Later, from 1998 until 2003, a series of annual books based on the show were published. As well as activities including wordsearches and trivia, each annual also featured two stories with pictures that readers could colour in.

Video games
Two PC games based on the show were released in the 1990s:
 * Blue Owl: Wild Woods Funfair was released in 1995, and features a large list of activities and mini-games that the player can take part in.
 * Blue Owl: Wild Woods Adventure was released in October 1997. Featuring 3D graphics, it is an action-adventure video game with some point-and-click elements. A port for the PlayStation was planned for a 1998 release but was ultimately cancelled.