Come Outside is an educational childrens television series that ran from 23 September 1993 to 18 March 1997 and continues. The series aims to encourage young children to learn about the world around them. The starting point for each programme is something with which children are already familiar, such as water, wood, paper, boots, spiders, buses, soap, street lamps. The two main characters are Auntie Mabel (played by Lynda Baron of Open All Hours), and her dog Pippin(sometimes referred to as pinePy). They go on adventures in Auntie Mabels aeroplane, travelling far and wide across the UK to find out more. Music, rhymes and stories enrich the programme topics.\r
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The episode entitled Bricks won the Royal Television Society Educational Television Award 1997 in the Pre-school and Infants category.\r
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This was the main theme at the beginning of every episode:\r
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Look up, look down, look all around\r
Up in the air or on the ground\r
Come for a walk, come for a ride\r
Theres so much to see so Come Outside.\r
The adventures are generally concerned with showing how something is made, or how everyday objects and systems work. Examples are:\r
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Clay -- Auntie Mabels teapot breaks. They have to buy a new one, but the potter has run out of clay. Auntie Mabel and Pippin bring him some, then find out how teapots are made.\r
Sewage -- Auntie Mabel goes down a drain to see where waste water goes. Then she visits a sewage treatment plant to see what happens to whats flushed down the toilet.\r
Street Lamps -- Auntie Mabel reports an out-of-order street lamp. She joins the maintenance man as he uses a hydraulic platform to replace the bulb, and explains the mystery of how the streetlights switch on when it gets dark. She also tells a story explaining how street lamps were lit in the olden days.\r
Buses -- Auntie Mabels plane wont start, so she and Pippin have to go on a bus instead. She gets on at Hill End Road in Harefield and accidentally leaves Pippin on the bus, but is soon reunited with her thanks to the helpful driver of the U9 in Uxbridge.\r
A Woolly Jumper -- Auntie Mabel has run out of wool while knitting a woolly jumper. She and Pippin visit a sheep farm and a wool factory in search of supplies.\r
Most episodes would start with clues of what todays adventure was about. Auntie Mabel greets the viewers at the beginning of every episode with Hello me Dears and Pippin often gets up to mischief prompting Auntie Mabels final Oh Pippin! at the end of the programme, which Pippin likes.\r
Series 1 Programmes 1 -- 11 a cottage on the corner of Denham Airfield in Buckinghamshire was used to provide the exterior shots of Auntie Mabels house. She would come out of the house, walk through the back garden and on to the airfield to climb into her aeroplane. The interiors were shot at Capital Studios in Wandsworth, South West London.\r
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Series 2 Programmes 12 -- 30 was to be shot entirely on location, including the interiors of Auntie Mabels house. The cottage at Denham Airfield was occupied and so a new location had to be found. An empty cottage on some farmland in Harefield, Middlesex was rented. In the original transmission schedule Programme 30 (based in Harefield) was to be followed by a repeat of Programme 1 (based in Denham) and so a programme about moving house was shot to link the two locations.\r
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Series 3 Programmes 31 -- 40 was commissioned two years later and was also shot at the cottage in Harefield.\r
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In every programme Auntie Mabel ventures outside and this involved shooting in many locations in the United Kingdom, such as a pencil factory in Keswick, the manufacture of Wellington boots in Dumfries, a pottery in Stoke, growing bulbs in Spalding, Lincolnshire and making brushes in Portsmouth.\r
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Sometimes Auntie Mabels adventures stayed closer to home. Some of the episodes were filmed in the Middlesex area, for example in the episode Buses Auntie Mabel boards a bus bound for Uxbridge and is later seen exiting the public library at Ruislip Manor. Scenes were also shot in Woodley, in the precinct and in the veterinary clinic.\r
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In the episode Marmalade Auntie Mabel flies to Seville to visit an orange grove. Shooting was restricted to the one day on which the oranges were ready for harvesting. This was only known with very short notice and consequently arrangements to fly out were made at the last minute. It happened well outside the main production period by which time Lynda Baron was committed to other work and was not free to travel to Seville. To make it appear that Auntie Mabel had visited the orange grove, she was recorded in the studio against a Chroma key background while a body double was used for reverse angle shots of her in Spain.
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The episode entitled Bricks won the Royal Television Society Educational Television Award 1997 in the Pre-school and Infants category.\r
\r
This was the main theme at the beginning of every episode:\r
\r
Look up, look down, look all around\r
Up in the air or on the ground\r
Come for a walk, come for a ride\r
Theres so much to see so Come Outside.\r
The adventures are generally concerned with showing how something is made, or how everyday objects and systems work. Examples are:\r
\r
Clay -- Auntie Mabels teapot breaks. They have to buy a new one, but the potter has run out of clay. Auntie Mabel and Pippin bring him some, then find out how teapots are made.\r
Sewage -- Auntie Mabel goes down a drain to see where waste water goes. Then she visits a sewage treatment plant to see what happens to whats flushed down the toilet.\r
Street Lamps -- Auntie Mabel reports an out-of-order street lamp. She joins the maintenance man as he uses a hydraulic platform to replace the bulb, and explains the mystery of how the streetlights switch on when it gets dark. She also tells a story explaining how street lamps were lit in the olden days.\r
Buses -- Auntie Mabels plane wont start, so she and Pippin have to go on a bus instead. She gets on at Hill End Road in Harefield and accidentally leaves Pippin on the bus, but is soon reunited with her thanks to the helpful driver of the U9 in Uxbridge.\r
A Woolly Jumper -- Auntie Mabel has run out of wool while knitting a woolly jumper. She and Pippin visit a sheep farm and a wool factory in search of supplies.\r
Most episodes would start with clues of what todays adventure was about. Auntie Mabel greets the viewers at the beginning of every episode with Hello me Dears and Pippin often gets up to mischief prompting Auntie Mabels final Oh Pippin! at the end of the programme, which Pippin likes.\r
Series 1 Programmes 1 -- 11 a cottage on the corner of Denham Airfield in Buckinghamshire was used to provide the exterior shots of Auntie Mabels house. She would come out of the house, walk through the back garden and on to the airfield to climb into her aeroplane. The interiors were shot at Capital Studios in Wandsworth, South West London.\r
\r
Series 2 Programmes 12 -- 30 was to be shot entirely on location, including the interiors of Auntie Mabels house. The cottage at Denham Airfield was occupied and so a new location had to be found. An empty cottage on some farmland in Harefield, Middlesex was rented. In the original transmission schedule Programme 30 (based in Harefield) was to be followed by a repeat of Programme 1 (based in Denham) and so a programme about moving house was shot to link the two locations.\r
\r
Series 3 Programmes 31 -- 40 was commissioned two years later and was also shot at the cottage in Harefield.\r
\r
In every programme Auntie Mabel ventures outside and this involved shooting in many locations in the United Kingdom, such as a pencil factory in Keswick, the manufacture of Wellington boots in Dumfries, a pottery in Stoke, growing bulbs in Spalding, Lincolnshire and making brushes in Portsmouth.\r
\r
Sometimes Auntie Mabels adventures stayed closer to home. Some of the episodes were filmed in the Middlesex area, for example in the episode Buses Auntie Mabel boards a bus bound for Uxbridge and is later seen exiting the public library at Ruislip Manor. Scenes were also shot in Woodley, in the precinct and in the veterinary clinic.\r
\r
In the episode Marmalade Auntie Mabel flies to Seville to visit an orange grove. Shooting was restricted to the one day on which the oranges were ready for harvesting. This was only known with very short notice and consequently arrangements to fly out were made at the last minute. It happened well outside the main production period by which time Lynda Baron was committed to other work and was not free to travel to Seville. To make it appear that Auntie Mabel had visited the orange grove, she was recorded in the studio against a Chroma key background while a body double was used for reverse angle shots of her in Spain.
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