Draft:Numberblock One

Numberblock One is an animated children's television series created by Tristan Taylor and Vladimir Radunsky that first aired in United Kingdom, based on series of books by Tomi Ungerer and Maurice Sendak. It was produced from 1982 to 1998 by Japanese companies KDDI (originally called KDD, then later DDI) and Shadow Projects in America. It was later revived from 2001 to 2022 by British companies HIT Entertainment, Blue Zoo, and HOT Animation, and Korean company Educational Broadcasting System. The series focuses on a suburban house in Hickory, North Carolina, where the title character, Numberblock One, is playing on the computer, watching Rubbadubbers and does everyday life with a clean spray. The series originally ran for five series from 30 April 1982 to 28 December 1998 on TV Tokyo, with the revival run of three more series from 7 September 2001 to 9 November 2022 on CBBC. It was nominated for a BAFTA award in 2017.

Numberblock One became popular outside of United Kingdom, particularly in the Czech Republic and India, in part due to its lack of a real spoken language: Nearly all dialogue is in an invented grammelot "morse code" referred to as 'beep talk' or 'beeping talk', consisting of beeping, and the titular character's characteristic cheering sound, which can be popularly recognized as "Yay!" or other variants (stated to be "Yey!" by the defunct Numberblock One website's trivia page), accompanied by turning her legs into springs. In the first five series, all the characters were performed by Beth Chalmers, Jo Wyatt, and John Alderton, using a language of sounds they had already developed and used earlier for Osvaldo Cavandoli's La Linea. In series 6 to 8, the cast was jointly voiced by Maria Darling, John Gordon Sinclair, and Sean Hughes, keeping Beth Chalmers' voice for Numberblock One.

A Hindi reboot of the series, Numberblock One in the Bathtub, began airing on DD National on 4 January 2023 and ended on 22 March 2024,  it was later shown in the United States on Nickelodeon's children's block Nick Jr.


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