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 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 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 to it one way or another regardless.
 * 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.

Several other characters who lived in Wild Woods are seen regularly. Most are part of a family, though there are a few who live on their own as well.
 * Mishelle is a brown rabbit who acts as a "janitor" for Wild Woods, and is responsible for keeping it clean. She is often lazy and ill-tempered, and makes it clear that she hates her job, so Oakley often helps her with her work. Mishelle lives with her husband Maddox, a stay-at-home father for their daughter Manica and their pet/foster child Cola, a green snake - the three live sedentary lifestyles due to their lack of motivation to find something to do.
 * Terence is a light brown monkey who acts as a porter and newspaperman of sorts for Wild Woods, as he is seen doing various activities such as delivering items to the other inhabitants and setting up events in the forest. He has two children who he spoils badly; a younger daughter called Anita and an older son called Neo. Neo has the tendency to behave in a naive ans snooty manner, whilst Anita is prone to acting like a mischievous troublemaker. Though single in the first series, Terence has a new partner called Ivette.
 * Mr. Frit and Mrs. Frit are a coyote couple who are often very shy and have difficulty engaging with others. Mr. Frit often goes back and forth between helping Mishelle or Terence with their work, or looking after Blue Owl and/or his friends. They have a son called Skylar who often reluctantly spends time playing with Blue Owl and company.
 * A few other characters also appear occasionally, such as a rhino called Cybil who runs a cafeteria which sells barbecue food with her (non-speaking) elephant pet called Diego, and a koala called Joe who often has to spend long durations looking for food. Many other animals, such as bears, deers and foxes, are seen from time to time, but are depicted as non-sentient.

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.

Musician Sidney Plasket composed the show's soundtrack, which consists of a mixture of folk and trance music. The opening and credits sequence both use an instrumental piece.

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". She also said that she wanted to do more with the show, and possibly produce a third series but Halls was "very stingy with the funding".

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.

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 also aired on TVOKids in Canada from 1995 to 2003, though it used the original Kuboian version.

The show also aired throughout Europe and Australia. It aired on ABC in Australia, France 3 in France, Super RTL in Germany, Nederland 3 in the Netherlands, TVNZ 2 in New Zealand, TVE in Spain and SVT in Sweden.

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. 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

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 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.