Xya's Friends

Xya's Friends is a Jetanie animated educational television series. Created by Taylor Ridley and produced by Colourbox, the show ran for six series from 1974 to 1979, and was reran on television for over thirty years.

Xya's Friends aired on JT1 as part of the Windmill programming strand - it was broadcast during the "yellow" section on Friday afternoons, notably being Windmill's only programme to retain its initial timeslot for its entire run.

Premise
Every episode begins and ends with narration provided by Maurice Pebworth.

The series focuses on Xya, a boy who is friendly and imaginative, but has difficulty making friends. Each episode of the first series involves him meeting somebody new and becoming their friend. From the second series, Xya often spends every episode with his new friends, often acting as the one to help them solve their problems and act as the voice of reason in conflicts.

Beginning in series two, none of the episode plots last the entire fifteen-minute length, and use several short segments to fill up the rest of the time. These varied, but were often music videos for songs which were made for the show, brief educational clips or brief clips of Xya and company making things with arts and crafts.

Cast and characters
The show initially only had three voice actors; Taylor Ridley, Henry Buckings and Carl Forest. Additional voice actors started appearing from the third series.

Production
Xya's Friends was created by Taylor Ridley in 1972 shortly after Gravy and Spider finished production and was scheduled to air. After rewatching all of the episodes of Gravy and Spider, Ridley felt the show was too basic and that the titular characters had little to no personality. Thus, she got to work on creating a series which would have more character development and episodes with "more meaning".

Ridley chose to make the series about ordinary people doing ordinary things, and made the protagonist and most of the supporting characters children in order for children watching the show to be able to relate to the characters. She also made sure that the main character, Xya, was the "best" (most sensible and morally right) character. Ridley insisted that she wanted to make sure any negative behaviour was treated poorly and with appropriate punishment, and limiting the amount of humour present on the show for more sophisticated plotlines.

Xya's Friends ended its run in 1979. Ridley had no intentions of cancelling the show, but ultimately decided on doing so after hearing that Windmill would be dropped by the end of the year.

Transmissions
Xya's Friends spawned 64 episodes over six series, with each series consisting of 8 to 13 episodes. Each episode premiered on Friday afternoons at 4:40p.m.

Home media releases
The show received many releases on VHS tapes throughout Region 2 during the 1980s and 1990s. The complete collection, consisting of all 64 episodes, was released on DVD in Region 2 in 2003.

Jetania

 * Windmill (1974-1979)

Australia

 * ABC (1975-?)

France

 * TF1 (1976-?)

Italy

 * RAI (1976-?)
 * Boing (2004-2010)

Kuboia

 * Vision Network (1988-1997)
 * Bumper's Block (1991-1997)
 * Nickelodeon Kuboia (1993-1996)
 * Nick Jr. Kuboia (1997-2003)
 * Nick Jr. Classics (2004-2010)

New Zealand

 * TV One (1975-?)

United Kingdom

 * BBC1 (1974-1994)
 * Nickelodeon (1993-1999)
 * Nick Jr. (1999-2001)
 * Boomerang (2003-2008)

United States
When the show was reran on Toon Disney in the United States, the additional segments used to fill up timeslots were edited out.
 * Pinwheel (1977-1990)
 * Toon Disney (1998-2002)