Bertha (stylised as bertha, with a larger lower case "b") is a 13-episode British stop motion-animated children's television series about a factory machine of that name that aired from 1985 to 1986. All the characters were designed by Ivor Wood, and the series was produced by his company, Woodland Animations. It was broadcast on BBC Television,[1] It was intended as a replacement to the Postman Pat series, until the second series aired in 1996.
A series of five storybooks based on Bertha was published by André Deutsch at the same time as the series was broadcast. They were adapted by Eric Charles and illustrated by Steve Augarde, who was also responsible for the artwork and music in the children's series Bump.[1]
The series was later repeated on GMTV2 in the early 2000s along with Penny Crayon.
The series is available to watch on BritBox and Prime Video.
The series is set in an industrial estate occupied by the Spottiswood & Company factory, a small manufacturing plant producing a wide range of goods ranging from cuckoo clocks to windmill money boxes. Each episode focuses on a machine called Bertha that can produce any item requested of her. In each episode, the factory experiences a crisis affecting its daily production schedule, which Bertha invariably solves with the help of her factory worker friends.
Bertha was created by Woodland Animations, who also produced the shows Postman Pat, Charlie Chalk and Gran for the BBC. Episodes were written by Eric Charles and Stephen Flewers, and designed, produced and directed by Ivor Wood, co-founder of the Woodland company. Roy Kinnear and Sheila Walker voiced the characters, and Kinnear narrated. The main title music (as well as some of the other songs) featured the singing of Guy Fletcher. The songs "Tracy's Robot Song", "Mrs Tupp" and "Isn't it Nice?" from the Bertha 12-inch vinyl record feature the vocals of Stephanie de Sykes.
The first episode of Bertha premiered on BBC1 on 1 April 1985 at 3:55 pm after a 3:25 pm screening of Daffy Duck's Easter Special. Episodes 2-7 were shown over the following weeks, omitting the Easter and May Day holidays, and episodes 8–11 were first broadcast at the end of an autumn rerun. The BBC did not comply with an ordered schedule for the airing of the programme, and the last two episodes premiered in 1986 during a repeat season at 1:45 pm and 1:30 pm.[1] The series was regularly repeated on BBC1/2 until 1998.
Merchandise for the programme was, and is, very minimal. The merchandise listed are the only items that have been discovered.
On 13 July 1987, after the episodes were shown on TV, the BBC released one video of the show.
At some point in 1985, Bertha was featured on a Marks and Spencer (St. Michael) exclusive VHS release called Cartoon Favourites along with The Family-Ness, Ivor the Engine, Bagpuss and Pigeon Street. The "Mouse in the Works" episode of Bertha is on this release.
On 27 November 1989 one episode of Bertha was on the VHS release which was exclusive to W.H. Smith Postman Pat and Friends alongside Postman Pat and Charlie Chalk.
On 11 November 1991, one episode of Bertha was featured on the BBC VHS release Postman Pat and Company alongside Postman Pat and Charlie Chalk.
Hallmark and Carlton Home Entertainment released the first four episodes on a single video in 1994.
In 2004 Entertainment Rights released a DVD of the show containing three of the same episodes as the Hallmark/Carlton Release, replacing "The Best Machine Competition" with "More Speed, Less Work" (albeit mistitled "The Best Machine competition").
In 2011, Classic Media released a DVD entitled Fun with Friends: Volume One containing one episode of Bertha.
While there are no known Australian VHS releases of the programme, two DVDs of the entire series have been released by Reel Entertainment. The DVD cover claimed that the show was made by "the makers of Postman Pat and Thomas and Friends." However, this is only true for Charlie Chalk (since the slogan was used on all the Woodland Animations DVDs in Australia), because Jocelyn Stevenson (writer of Charlie Chalk) became the executive producer on Thomas and Friends from the seventh series (2003) until the tenth series (2006).
In 1985, to accompany the programme, some photobooks were released with altered titles to fit the style of the books. These were very similar to the Postman Pat photobooks, where the front cover would be an original illustration and all pictures within the book were images from the TV programme.
In 1986, after broadcast ended, the BBC's record label released a 12" vinyl record containing songs from the TV series.
All tracks are written by Bryan Daly
Tracks marked with an asterisk (*) did not feature in the TV series. However, it is possible that the song "Mr. Duncan" was to feature in the episode "More Speed, Less Work" but was not included due to it making the episode too long. The same is the case with "Mr. Willmake" possibly featuring in the episode "Bertha's Birthday Party".
The album also had a cassette release with the reference number of ZCR 585.
In 1987, Falcon released a board game using illustrations similar to those seen on the front covers of the photobooks. The game itself does not differ much from the Monopoly series of board games. If a player lands on T.O.M., they are allowed to ask Bertha to make an item for them.
In 1985, an Advent calendar using the same profile image as the vinyl record was released.
From 1985 to 1988, Bertha featured in a total of four annuals: