Quick June drawing for International Dance Day! Had absolutely no clue that was what today was until I saw companies posting about it because I wanted to draw her anyways so yeah sure let’s go with that!

Welp, I’ve caved in and finally made a Bubble Guppies-sona. It’s literally just me as a Guppy. Nuff said.

This was actually inspired by a drawing a friend of mine (@ZtheToonarchist on Twitter) did a few years ago in the Nickstory Jr. Archives server back when I used to roam around there, they drew a bunch of the users and they drew me as a Guppy with Oona. Wanted to revisit that idea now with my Mad Drawing Skillz™.

omg whirlwind!! my favorite skylander!!

oh, thats zionist propaganda in my knuckles the echidna show

This machine kills AI

Been watching Little Einsteins lately so I wanted to draw Annie for a change of pace.

yay :^)

Join the smile parade

can you just ramble? ramble for as long as you want. as a fellow late 00s brit who's into some of the same interests as you (specifically vida the vet, charlie and lola, me too, balamory, abadas, and literally just any other cbeebies show i grew up with) i'd love to hear it!

if it's a ramble you want, a ramble you shall get. In other words here's like, my complete history with CBeebies. As a 08' kid, I was born in a weird transitional period for the channel. This was one year after they introduced the now iconic blocks of Get Set Go, Discover and Do and Big Fun Time, and Chris and Pui were going to move on from pres in 09' to work on Show Me Show Me. Postman Pat was just fresh from it's big SDS overhaul, which people either loved or hated (I think I liked it as a kid but looking back on it, it's nothing to get worked up over IMO, I just don't get why Pat can do James Bond-esque stunts now and is perfectly content riding a motorcycle.). Oh, and there was this little show about a garden of the night that began the year prior, I doubt that you've heard of it. Yeah, In the Night Garden was probably the first major CBeebies show I remember getting obsessed with, and looking back at it? I honestly don't know why. It's not a bad show at all, don't get me wrong, but I don't know why I was so obsessed over it to the point of having this dancing Igglepiggle toy as a kid.

Also, I remember loving the Hahoos as a young'un, part because a CBeebies magazine I got ages ago had little Hahoo toys. I took them on holiday to Turkey with me, yeah can you tell I'm autistic? I don't think I have them anymore, and if I do they're probably all scuffed up and missing paint. But that's okay, I can easily buy them on eBay to fill a place in 2 year old me's hear- HOW MUCH FOR 5 SMALL PIECES OF PLASTIC?

Yeah I didn't know these things were going for this much until my mum saw someone on Facebook ranting on how stupid expensive they are nowadays about a year ago. Anyways, on the topic of CBeebies' Bedtime Hour (and A Quarter nowadays), there's one elephant in the room I must discuss, the closedown screen.

This slightly green thing telling you to get some sleep absolutely terrified me as a kid though, it wasn't on the same level as the Eastenders theme's doofs and Christmas crackers if I remember correctly, but it still gave me PTSD for years on end. (Hey, at least I wasn't around for when the channel started, I really wanna meet whoever thought it was a great idea to make this screen bright blinding pink right after the goodnight song settled everyone down, just so I can tell them how dumb that idea was.)

Like all things I was spooked of as a kid, I got over it when I was getting nostalgic for the brand. Speaking of closedown screens, how is the closedown screen for the 2023 rebrand really good? Like, it would make a great screensaver without the text. You can say what you want about the new logo (which I think is fine, it fits in with the rest of the modern BBC branding so it succeeds in that aspect), but you gotta admit they did a really good job with revamping the idents for the channel.

Anyways, onto more of my favourite CBeebies shows. Charlie and Lola is easily up there as one of my favourites. It'sMy mum distinctly recalls taking me to the live stage show (which, live stage shows are a whole other can of worms I can talk about), and I couldn't remember much about it so I researched it, and it looks like they did a ridiculously good job of translating the show to a stage play while keeping the show's unique artstyle.

Balamory, obviously as a CBeebies viewer prior to 2016, I know what a Balamory is. I don't need to explain it. Though one weird memory I have is I remember going past the local barbers one day and seeing a Balamory rerun airing. I dunno why they showed CBeebies in the barbers of all places. On the other hand, Me Too!, which to me always felt like Balamory, but a wee bit worse (because that's exactly what it was!), and I don't remember my exact feelings towards it as a kid, but as a teenager, I became obsessed with it after found the Me Too! YouTube channel after I was pretty much done binge-watching Abadas. It quickly became my main comfort show, like if I'm not in the mood for anything else, just stick an episode of Me Too! on, there's like 150 episodes and I'm not sure if I've even seen over half of them. I've seen more MT! eps than Balamory though, probably cause it's more easily accessible. With Balamory, you gotta go on the internet archive for episodes of that. Abadas was one of the shows I distinctly remembered the intro for, though I misremembered it with Baby Jake of all shows (they came out around the same time). I went and revisited it one January day in 2023, around the time I was starting to put my Bubble Guppies hyperfix on the backseat as the show was about to end, and instantly fell in love with it. Really wish the production company behind the show didn't go bust as there was a lot of cool supplementary material with the show as well, they did a bunch of shorts on Vimeo which I happily recommend.

Eventually, I fell out of CBeebies around 2014 or so as, well, I was getting older and was ready to move on to more grown up shows (this is coming from the same kid who kept actively watching Nick Jr. well into his teenage years). But then I was channel surfing at my nan's around October 2019 or so and decided to stick CBeebies on for fun after deciding whatever was being shown on Challenge was too boring, I guess. Something Special was probably the show that launched me back into my CBeebies hyperfix, yea of all shows. Completely forgot the show used Makaton and as someone who was interested in sign language I went on a binge-spree to study all of Justin's signs. I became fairly competent at it. I got into Hey Duggee for a a bit as well, known as every parent's lifeline apparently. The game show episode is one of my favourites, mostly due to all the fun references they crammed into the episode. As a fan of the shows we people call game, it was a fun surprise. I also rediscovered some of my old childhood favourites that were still getting reruns. Swashbuckle was a bit too recent for me to have recalled watching it as a kid but my brother was certainly around for it and Tree Fu Tom, which was still rerunning at the time. Charlie and Lola still aired reruns, and back in 2019 I kinda just glanced at without much thought before realising a few years later that it was actually really good. Night Garden made me cry of nostalgia, and I also thought Baby Jake was the biggest feverdream ever conceived on television. I even was one of the weirdo's who listened to CBeebies Radio, though honestly there's no point in listening to it live as you can find all it's content on the Sounds app. Admittedly, I haven't gotten super into Bluey. Y'know, the most popular preschool show of this decade that didn't begin in this decade? Yeah I watched about 10-15 episodes of it, said "wow, this is one of the best preschool shows ever crafted", and then moved on to watching the same 40 Blue's Clues & You! episodes again. I'm sure if I force myself to binge watch it more I'll fall head over heels in love with it though. So if I haven't gone crazy for Bluey, what modern CBeebies shows have I gone crazy for? Funnily enough, two that released within the span of around 5 months. The Game Catchers was the first one I got into. I just kept binging episodes and instantly fell in love with it. Always thought the show's main concept was really, REALLY good. Teaching kids about outdoor games in the day and age of iPads is a really smart move. Don't really see many people in the fanbase yet unfortunately, it's certainly one my favourite CBeebies shows from the last 5 years. Also it has absolutely ruined me as any time I hear or say the phrase "so cute" I immediately have to connect it to Nina.

Vida on the other hand I pretty naturally got into. I checked it out, watched the first few episodes, and thought it was pretty good, but never intended it to become my next big hyperfixation. I was sooooooo wrong. I've always had a soft spot for shows with cute animals (Was a big LPS 2012 fan way back when) so naturally this was always destined to be a show I'd fall in love with. I also love all the characters in the show too. Pippen's my personal favourite, but Zigzag is a REALLY close second though. She's a cute bunny who canonically has ADHD. What's not to love.

Okay I think I've talked enough and I've been typing this out for like, 2 hours, I really need some sleep. I could talk about all sorts of other CBeebies shows I enjoy (LazyTown, Tish Tash, JoJo & Gran Gran, Carrie & David's Popshop's a more recent one I've binged from the days of old) but I've talked enough so yeah.

platforming palestinian joy is just as important as sharing the suffering they're enduring during this genocide. despite continued displacement and bombardment, you cannot steal their joy and spirit. happy birthday to this sweet baby 🖤🇵🇸 may they grow up to see a free palestine

Pippen busy “Pippening” in the recording booth! Pippen is canonically kind of sort of an aspiring actor (at least according to her bio on the VTV website) so this idea popped into my head. Made as a gift for her voice actress Fontina Fourtones and her British voice actress Dulcie-Bella Hackley!

That montage at the end of Saturday Night Takeaway made me realise how much of the show I forgot about that I had locked away in my brain, I said I wouldn't be that sad to see the show go but man what a nostalgia trip

I wanted to quickly reblog this, this was one of the stupidest things to happen to me last year and I wanted to share the story again. I also honestly belive I was the only person who entered the giveaway for the wheelbarrow lul.

Fun Fact: I won a wheelbarrow from the BBC.

OK so this is a long story. Back in March 2023 for Red Nose Day, the BBC did a giveaway called Telly Treasures, giving away many BBC props that, apparently, had been "disappearing", because every giveaway I've ever been in has had a story.

Some of this stuff was gotten rid of due to rebrands, like the CBeebies bug cushion, it was no longer needed as they had new ones for the then-new Reith branding. Some of this stuff was probably gotten rid of due to excess stock, like the coveted Pointless trophy and the House of Games suitcase. And some of this stuff was gotten rid of because I assume the diehard fans wanted them, like the pants from RuPaul’s Drag Race UK.

So, when I heard about the giveaway one night after an episode of The One Show my mum was watching, like any person who has a interest in TV nonsense, I entered the giveaway. Besides, it was free to do so, what did I have to lose? I probably wouldn't win anything so it was harmless to do so! Well if you told me then and there that I would win something.... yeah I probably would have believed you. So it was a Wednesday afternoon, my mum was at work and I was busy... I dunno, drawing? I forgot. Well, I was doing something, then my mum came in with someone on the phone, saying I was selected as one of the winners. Well, whaddya know? I only found out about this silly giveaway cause my mum was watching The One Show one night and I ended up winning a prize! So what prize did I win? The HOG suitcase? The Blue Peter dog collar? Pat Butcher's earings? No. None of them. I won the flippin' wheelbarrow.

Now, I'll admit. I haven't seen a single episode of Gardener's World in my life. So when I heard I had won Monty Don's wheelbarrow, I went "who?" So I did a google search and apparently he started hosting Gardener's World in 2003, and still does so today. His wheelbarow is just a one-wheel big boy with "Genuine As Seen On The BBC Dirt Granules". So that's just great isn't it? So Mum sent our personal details (of which I will not share here), and then I waited about a month. And then it came.

So some postman came walking up to our house and said "Hi, I got a pallet for you" to my mum. My mum was baffled, and then the guy said "yeah, it's for a BBC wheelbarrow..." and I very specifically remember that she muttered to herself "oh god.". In a very large BBC box (that I refuse to throw away), there it was, Monty Don's wheelbarrow. Inside was a lovely little certificate of authenticity saying "Congrats, you own a wheelbarrow!" and they going into a list of what not to do with it. I can't sell it, I can't put it in a museum, I can't make an advert with it, I can willingly show it off to friends, family, on social media, but i can't show it off in public, and i can't make copies of it, but hey! I own a wheelbarrow now, good on me! And then there's the wheelbarrow, and it's a wheelbarrow, what else can I say.

Of course this was a bit of a in-joke with my family and friends at the time. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty overjoyed to have a thing As Seen on TV resting in my garden, but, like, it's a big wheelbarrow. The whole list of "you can't do diddly squit with it" was also a fun joke as like, it's a wheelbarrow. Do you assume I'm gonna wheel it out in public and put on a show with it? I mean it'll be useful when I'm old and have grey hair, but right now I'm a teenager who watches The Game Catchers on CBeebies. I can't garden. But it's useful for my mum so it has it's worth!

So there, that was the story on how I won a wheelbarrow from the BBC. I have nothing more to say.

I just thought Isabella would look nice in Ayaka's skin