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Underground Ernie was an animated cartoon series that
was originally aired on the BBC's CBeebies
television channel in June 2006.
The
series was based around the adventures of Ernie, a
supervisor on the underground railway network.
Twenty-six episodes were originally recorded and broadcast,
with anticipation of another series to follow.
To coincide with the release of the series, a range
of children's merchandise from toys and clothing to
books and magazines was also released.
In 2008, following the huge success of the
brand (80,000 website visitors, highest weekly
viewing CBeebies figures, over 30 UK product
licenses, product sales in excess of £1m within 2
years of the show's launch), the production company
behind Underground Ernie (Joella Productions) began
seeking further investment in the show with a view
to work on up to 56 further episodes. If
investment is secured, it could still be a number of
years before further episodes are aired as it took
over four years to get the first series from idea to
completion and then a further year before the
episodes were shown on television.
So
why am I reading about this cartoon character on a
Wonder Stuff website you're probably asking.
Series producer Sid Rainey
(formerly of the group Compulsion) met Miles in a
chance meeting and happened to discuss what he was
working on at the time and had been for a number of
years previous. That led to
discussions about The Wonder Stuff recording the
theme tune and additional incidental music for the
series although the score is actually credited to HRB Music (Hunt, Rainey, (Martin) Bell).
It
was anticipated that an album of tracks from the
series would be released at some stage with the possibility of a single to also be
released. As yet, this has not come to
fruition although
Miles has worked with both Vic Reeves and Ian Prowse (Amsterdam) on
additional material since the broadcast of the first
series.
Whether a further series will ever see the light of day remains to be
seen but with enormous popularity (it was the
highest-rated programme on the CBeebies channel when
it first aired) and a mass of merchandise still
available and being released on a regular basis,
there must surely be a market for Ernie somewhere...
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Underground Ernie
