Towser

For the cat used to catch mice, see Glenturret distillery § Towser the mouser. For the British racehorse trainer, see Towser Gosden. For the character in the novel Catch-22, see Sergeant Towser.

Not to be confused with Wowser (TV series).

Towser
Genre	Animation
Created by	Tony Ross
Written by	Tony Ross
Narrated by	Roy Kinnear
Theme music composer	Duncan Lamont
Composer	Duncan Lamont
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	26
Production
Producer	Clive Juster
Editor	David McKee
Running time	5 minutes
Production company	King Rollo Films
Original release
Network	ITV
Release	11 September (1984-09-11) – 16 October 1984 (1984-10-16)

Towser is a British series of children's books created by veteran children's writer and illustrator Tony Ross and published by Anderson Press. The series is about an intelligent dog, Towser, and his friends The King, Dr. Smelly, and Sadie; and a variety of adversaries such as the Terrible Thing, the Water Rats, and Goblin Gobble.

Television series

The book series spawned an animated television series narrated by Roy Kinnear and made by British animation studios King Rollo Films (best known for making well known animated works for children such as King Rollo, Mr Benn and Spot) for ITV Central which ran for one season of 26 episodes. It was made in 1982 and aired on ITV as part of Children's ITV on 11 September 1984 and ending on 16 October on the same year. The series was also repeated on ITV in 1988 for a short while and aired one last time in August of that year as part of the summer morning programming on Children's ITV. Towser later aired on Channel 4 in 1990 and was shown as part of their block of classic children's television series Take 5 in 1994 along with other children's programmes that had previously aired on other networks such as Paddington, Mio Mao, The Magic Roundabout, Willo the Wisp, Tales of the Riverbank, Mr Men, Fred Basset, Ivor the Engine and Roobarb. It has also been broadcast on cable television on The Children's Channel and was shown there numerous of times from 1985 to 1996.

Play It Again

Towser was later joined by King Rollo Films' other television programmes Mr Benn, King Rollo and Victor and Maria and both of them aired with a 40-minute compilation programme called Play It Again. The theme song was sung by jazz and blues singer George Melly.

Global broadcasts

Towser also aired in several different countries such as ABC TV in Australia (it first aired on the ABC in early 1984 several months before its UK television debut), TV One and TV2 in New Zealand, TV2, TV3 and M-Net in South Africa, XEIPN-TV 11 in Mexico, Channel 5 in Singapore (as part of Play It Again), NTA in Nigeria and Nickelodeon (being shown on the Nick Jr. series Eureeka's Castle) and Cartoon Network (being shown on the children's anthology series Small World) in the US.

Availability

All 26 episodes of the show were released on DVD in the UK by Demand DVD in 2013.

Episodes

01. Towser and the Terrible Thing

02. Towser and Sadie's Birthday

03. Towser and the Lion

04. Towser and the Water Rats

05. Towser and the Smile Machine

06. Towser and Goblin Gobble

07. Towser and the Magic Apple

08. Towser and the Nosey Parker

09. Towser and Sadie's Robot

10. Towser and the Holiday

11. Towser and the Alien Invader

12. Towser and the Funny Face

13. Towser and the Secret

14. Towser and the Wizard

15. Towser and the Dinner Party

16. Towser and the Dentist

17. Towser and Uncle Bosco

18. Towser and the Snowman

19. Towser and the Space Shot

20. Towser and the Flight

21. Towser and the Black Hole

22. Towser and the Haunted House

23. Towser and the Black Knight

24. Towser and the Dragon

25. Towser and the Slight Accident*

26. Towser and the Conjuror**

*This was broadcast as the 26th and final episode

**Despite being the final episode, this was broadcast as the very first one

External links

• Toonhound
• Towser at IMDb