Cosgrove Hall at the Lowry

If you've been to the News page, you'll know that The Lowry museum in Salford has been hosting "From Dangermouse to Bill and Ben", an exhibition celebrating 25 years of Cosgrove Hall. Of course, I considered it my duty to investigate so off I went, with my trusty boyfriend in tow. This is our story.

Loot

There are many quality goods related to Cosgrove Hall shows, from pencils to plushies and videos to vitamin pills. If your favourite toy when you were little was that Dangermouse that granny knitted, or if you had a Duckula costume like the one on the right, then the Loot section is for you. You can also find out how to get hold of that essential merchandise of yesteryear, and even some new toys too!

Link-O-Rama

Here's a selection of links that you might find handy if you liked the things on this site. Some are Cosgrove Hall related, some aren't. More will be added as I find them. Links about a particular show can be found under its own entry in the Shows bit.

Cosgrove Hall

• Another excellent overview of the studio's 25 years, along with very enlightening comments from the head honchos, on the Animation World magazine.
• Ripping Gags is "a London-based media company which originates new concepts in children’s animation and books". "Why should I care?", you ask. Well, they wrote and developed Cosgrove Hall's latest success story Albie, that's why. You can find lots of fab info and pics, and video clips too, on their official site www.rippinggags.co.uk.
• CITV is home to two of Cosgrove Hall's newest shows, Albie and Engie Benjy.
• A big party was held in Manchester on May 14th to celebrate Cosgrove Hall's quarter-century. Not much more info about this yet, but you can see some photos from it on the Animation World Magazine Web site.
• Cosgrove Hall's little corner of Cartoon World is alive again. Not as useful as the Official site, but worth a quick look.
• Remember the Eighties? If you're a Cosgrove Hall fan, you almost certainly do. remembertheeighties.com has a brand-new interview with Mark Hall (just turn the colour down on your monitor before you go there).
• Rebecca, the Webmistress of Toon Talents, has very kindly transcribed an interesting article about Cosgrove Hall's new production of Andy Pandy. Click here to read it.
• Go to the Digital Producer Web site for an article about one of Cosgrove Hall's newest shows, Engie Benjy.
• Keith Hopwood is the talented guy who composed music for Alias the Jester, The Wind in the Willows and the Discworld shows, as well as some of the new CH productions. (He's also a former member of 60s band Herman's Hermits!) Find out more about his work on his official Website, Pluto Music.

Animation

• The Animation World Network is probably *the* place online for news and gossip about the animation industry.
• Toonhound is a cracking source of information about many British cartoons and comics. Look in their Toon Gods section for info and more links about Cosgrove Hall, as well as many of their shows.
• The Big Cartoon DataBase has info on almost any cartoon you can think of, and you can vote for your favourites too!
• Maybe you don't like Japanese animation, or "anime", but I do and you can't stop me putting links to it here. Ha! The Anime Turnpike is pretty much the best anime portal on the Web. Even if you only like Pokemon (shame on you), go take a look.
• Studio Ghibli makes the world's best animated movies. Go to Nausicaa.net to learn why.

Kids' TV

• Sausagenet can satisfy many of your nostalgia needs with its video-ordering info, lyrics and pictures. Concentrates mainly on British shows.
• 80s Cartoons is also a great source of nostalgia (despite the name, it does cover some shows from the 70s). This has a lot more American shows too.
• Watched It! is another great site for British toon info, including some Cosgrove Hall shows. You can get some Jamie and the Magic Torch desktop wallpaper there, as well as an instrumental version of the theme music to karaoke along to! What are you waiting for?

Fan creations

• A lady by the name of Emerald Echidna has produced a sophisticated Dangermouse fan story called "The Lost Files". It covers events which took place after the series ended, and also introduces new characters. Go here to read it (it's illustrated too.)