Lollipop (TV series)

Lollipop is a Kuboian live-action educational television series created by Sofie van Halen, Janet Rose and Dominic Halls and produced by Bubblegum Studios and Lollipop Productions. The twice-a-week show aired on Vision Network on Monday and Thursday mornings from 1989 to 1996. After it ended, TVVC continued to air episodes regularly until 2008. It has since gained a cult following.

Premise and format
Each episode of Lollipop revolved around a particular activity or theme, with the show's main setting being the Lollipop House, where the main characters Sofie van Halen and her ragdoll puppet Felicia van Blackberry (voiced by Rachelle Constantinos) lived. Each episode would begin with Sofie waking Felicia up and helping her getting dressed as they prepare for any outside trip or visitors that may be coming to the Lollipop House.

As an educational programme, most episodes of Lollipop centred around reading, counting and problem solving. Each episode normally had two songs, and ended with either Sofie or one of the other characters reading a story to Felicia and anybody else present at the time. Although normally tame, some of the later episodes (from 1993 onwards) dealt with more serious subjects such as bullying, family problems, and Sofie and Felicia's attempts to help those dealing with said problems.

Characters

 * Felicia van Blackberry (voiced by Rachelle Constantinos) is the show's mascot and most prominent character; a child-sized ragdoll who loves in the Lollipop House. Very curious and imaginative and good at making new friends, she is shown to really like going out and about to different places and learning about new things. Occasionally Felicia can get carried away when she is excited but means no harm and tries to make things right whenever she makes a mistake.
 * Sofie van Halen is the show's main presenter; a wise, friendly and hardworking individual who lives in the Lollipop House with Felicia, acting as her caretaker and having a mother-daughter-like bond with her. Although the first two series have her acting as the voice of reason, later episodes show her making mistakes and proving to not be as careful as she believes. It is never revealed what Sofie does as an occupation, though she is seen looking after children and characters other than Felicia.
 * Judith and Janet Rose, are a pair of sisters collectively known as the Traffic Sisters. Generally wearing red and green 1960s-style go-go dresses, they act as a traffic managing duo who make sure the streets are safe for Sofie and Felicia to walk and drive through. Outside of their jobs, they are also singers and typically sing at least one song per episode. Judith, the older sister, is normally more confident and talkative one who often tires herself out due to overworking whilst Janet is the more shy and introverted one who regularly doubts her own capabilities.
 * Chloe Wallace is a bus driver who drives a very colourful minibus and regularly drives Sofie and Felicia about to different places. Though seemingly a sensible driver, she is a lot more theatrical in both personality and appearance compared to the more down-to-earth characters when outside her minibus, often getting involved in slapstick and wearing a very large hat and bracelets.

History
Lollipop was created by Sofie van Halen, Janet Rose and Dominic Halls. The show was created over fears that not enough children in Kuboia were attending school due to the lack of educational premises in the country at the time. Halls requested for multiple educational shows to be produced that could air on weekday mornings for children who were unable to attend school. Lollipop was commissioned as a 'general' educational programme that could focus on a variety of different subject matters and life skills.

The show premiered on 4th September 1989, generally with the idea that a new episode would air on a Monday and a Thursday. at 9:00a.m. and would be followed by a 35-minute Vision News update. Episodes were generally produced on a tight budget, and were generally produced without writing scripts; instead, each character would be given a set of lines to say during the filming of each scene. Around two episodes were produced in a day, though sometimes only one episode could be filmed depending on how long it took to record certain scenes and depending on the conditions and time that Sofie van Halen could hire venues for.

For the puppet of Felicia van Blackberry, the character was given multiple different heads to represent the mood she was in at that time (e.g. "happy", "sad", "angry"), and her head was made detachable from the rest of her body. The puppet's actual main body frame was made to appear so she was half-naked, only wearing underwear, so the character could wear different clothes for different situations. The "underwear" part of the character model was made with a fabric strap texture whilst the rest of her body was made with cloth.

Specials

 * Christmas Special: 20th December 1993
 * Moon Special: 31st October 1994
 * The Christmas Festival: 22nd December 1994
 * The Christmas Wish: 21st December 1995

Telecast
After its conclusion in 1996, Lollipop continued to air on TVVC in reruns for another twelve years, airing on Tiny Vision from 1997 to 2007 and Junior Vision temporarily during the spring of 2008. The show also aired on Nickelodeon Kuboia from 1993 to 2002.

Reruns of the show returned to TVVC to coincide with its twenty-fifth anniversary in September 2019, with episodes sporadically airing during special occasions.

International airings and versions
Rose and van Halen were originally hesitant to distribute Lollipop internationally as they believed that the show would only cater to Kuboian audiences. In spite of this, the show began broadcasting in Japanese on NHK Educational TV in 1992, in the English language with Japanese subtitles. The following year, it began airing in the United Kingdom on Channel 4.

A Dutch-language localised version of Lollipop titled Lolly premiered on Kindernet in the Netherlands in 1993 and ran for two series. The show followed a similar premise and structure to the original Kuboian version, but Felicia van Blackberry was replaced with another puppet character called Beatrix de Braam, whom starred in the show with a rotating cast of adult figures. Many episodes of Lolly were junked after it was pulled from Kindernet's lineup in the early 2000s, and very little footage of it has resurfaced since.

Reception
Lollipop saw high viewing figures during its run and was popular amongst school children, as well as children who were unable to attend school. Some episodes that premiered during public holidays received as much as 1.5 million viewing figures. Van Halen explained "I think what made Lollipop so popular was that it was relatable, and we didn't hold back when coming up with ideas for episodes. It was educational, but it was also fun and entertaining."

"Swearing" episode
On 4th April 1994, an episode titled "Swearing" was broadcast which Felicia is given into trouble by Sofie for using minor profanity after hearing it from Sofie herself earlier in the episode, with the words "damn", "crap" and "piss" all being used several times. Although said episode was made to teach children not to swear, TVVC received several complaints that the show was watched by very young children and that the episode would encourage them to use said words. The episode was not broadcast on Channel 4, and also did not air when the show reran on Tiny Vision.

The episode regained attention in the late 2010s, with some citing the episode as humorous, particularly the scene where Felicia shouts "Ah piss!" when her toy block tower falls over.

"Coming Out" episode
On 13th March 1995, the episode "Coming Out" premiered, which featured Felicia and Sofie helping two teenage girls; Alisa and Vickie (played by Esther Redbarron and Denise Chevrolet) to come out as homosexual to their parents and admit their feelings to each other. Although the episode received some praise by the media, an Open Eagle article from April 1995 criticised the episode noting "Alisa and Vickie have no personality outside of hiding the fact they are both gay. [...] The episode is literally a cliché teen-targeted romcom but with another girl instead of a boy". A guest on Journalist's Corner felt the episode was "inappropriate" and that Redbarron and Chevrolet, and other children on the show, were made to look sexually appealing despite both being underaged.

The episode was not broadcast on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.

Live shows
A live show titled Lollipop Live toured around Kuboia during the spring of 1994. Further nationwide tours occured in the autumn of 1997, the autumn of 1999 and the autumn of 2004. These tours saw most of the cast reprising their roles from the TV series, and featured music and songs that were present and appeared on several episodes.

VHS releases
Although the full series was never released, many LollipopVHS tapes were released throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Video releases of the show were handled by Vision Video in Kuboia and Video Collection International in the United Kingdom. They generally had three episodes that all had some sort of theme that made them similar to each other.

According to Van Halen, she has as a master copy of every episode and special in her personal collection.

Magazine
Felicia van Blackberry had her own magazine series that was published from 1994 to 2001. Releasing once every three months (typically the first Tuesday of March, June, September and December), the magazine featured various puzzles and activities, as well as stories featuring full colour images.