A vibrant and inspiring new 3D craft show for preschoolers is ready to brighten up Channel 5’s Milkshake! block in the U.K., when Pop Paper City premieres at 9 a.m. GMT on Saturday, November 12. Blending 3D adventures with live-action crafts, the 11-minute episodes introduce viewers to a unique group of friends living in a stunning and peculiar paper world, where they find new ways to have fun together and use crafting to solve their problems.
Produced by award-winning Bournemouth-bated indie studio LoveLove Films, Pop Paper City features live-action montages within the show to inspire children to make their own paper creations, encouraging ‘doing as well as viewing’. The character Helping Hand, voiced by TV star Nick Mohammed (Ted Lasso, Intelligence, Christopher Robin), plays an integral part as he takes the form of a real hand, which comes down into the screen, interacting with the 3D world to help the characters when they need an adult’s supervision.
Founder and Managing Director of LoveLove Films, Georgina Hurcombe, was inspired to create a craft series like the ones she enjoyed growing up. “I loved crafting when I was a kid, and I loved shows like Blue Peter and Art Attack. I can remember an episode of Blue Peter where they crafted Tracy Island from The Thunderbirds, and it was so fun to make,” Hurcombe recalls.
“Of course, my version of Tracy Island looked nothing like the one they made; it more closely resembled a blob of papier-mâché, but I loved making it and it was shows like these that helped inspire Pop Paper City. I wanted children to really be a part of the adventure themselves. I feel it’s so important that kids are ‘doing as well as viewing’ so the viewers can craft along and everything in Pop Paper City can be reproduced in paper and the show itself encourages families to get together and create the parts of the world together.”
The series follows Plom, Phoebe, Mae-Mae, Zip, Hooper and Fly (all voiced by real children) as they explore the world of Pop Paper City, a vivid, vast and exciting place. The characters travel to urban environments, explore caves, the ocean or even outer space — Just like children’s imaginations, the world of Pop Paper City has no bounds for creativity and exploration.
As well as encouraging ‘doing as well as viewing’, the show encourages sustainability. “We are passionate about taking on projects for positive change,” Hurcombe explains, “and have previously worked with the United Nations Environment to produce animated children’s content about the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling.”
In the series, the Helping Hand character suggests to the children watching at home that they can use recycled materials as well as reusing everyday household items such as egg boxes, cardboard or toilet roll tubes.
“I truly believe that Pop Paper City has the power to inspire children across the globe to ‘get crafty’,” Hurcombe adds. “Pop Paper City has always been our passion project. I’m delighted to be in production with the series and can’t wait for it to be on screens both in the U.K. and around the world.”
