Every year, the BBC airs a Children In Need charity fundraiser. This year they produced a stop motion music video which, especially for cartoon buffs in the UK, is a pretty big deal. It collects around 120 characters (approximately) from British children’s shows from the last 30 (or more) years. It features classics like Paddington Bear, the Wombles, Roobarb and Custard, Peppa Pig, Bagpuss and Muffin the Mule, along with newer characters like Fifi and the Flowertots, Pingu, Bob the Builder, Postman Pat and many more (including a few cameo appearances from US superstars Scooby-Doo and Spongebob Squarepants).

It took many different companies (many of them rivals) coming together to make this piece. Chapman Entertainment produced and Tim Harper directed.

You’ll be singing this one all day…

Believe it or not, this is from a kids show which just won a Scottish Bafta Award last week for Best Children’s TV! The KNTV Show is an educational TV program that has been broadcast on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom since 2006. Previous seasons tackled science and philosophy – this year they take a frank look at sex. Wikipedia describes the show this way:

The show is presented by two animated fictional teenagers from Eastern Europe (specifically the fictional state of “Slabovia”, the “last remaining communist state in Europe”), called Kierky and Nietschze, named after Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. The show melds comedy and education into one as form of edutainment.

If you enjoyed this video, you might enjoy the others devoted to Puberty, Pregnancy and the Male Body.

Allison Schulnik’s video for Grizzly Bear is an unabashedly handmade stop motion piece. The colorful smears of lumpy clay are put through Bruce Bickford-esque transformations, and the imagery is manipulated well to match the haunting tone of the music. Schulnik is a graduate of the experimental program at CalArts.

(Thanks, Max Porter)

Brazilian artist Helder Santos drew, animated and directed this video for the local band Eddie and singer Karina Buhr. Santos writes:

The video is a protest against the violence and social problems in Brazil. Everybody thinks of Brazil as the fun, carnaval country. We tried to put what really happens here though the vision of a masked ball carnaval of horror. Hope you like it.

Santos produced it along with his wife Camilla and friends at production house CherryPlus.

This morning, an example of animation from South Africa. Animator Mike Scott created this video for the band Goldfish. Software and tools used were Photoshop CS4, Anime Studio Pro 6, Final Cut Express 4 HD, Macbook, Macbook Pro, Wacom Intuos 3 and Wacom Cintiq 12 WX .

The latest video for the Canadian band Tom Fun Orchestra from the duo Alasdair Brotherston and Jock Mooney (we featured their previous piece here a couple of months ago). This one, done in a moody silouette style, was just nominated for a UK VMA award.

Don’t miss Anthony F. Schepperd’s video for Ape School’s “Wail to God.” The immediacy and intensity of his drawn animation is a real pleasure to watch. His stretchy character transformations and surrealist touches like the NSFW tit-trees give off a vibe of somebody who’s having fun with the possibilities of animation.

Michael Fragstein directed this video for the group Vania and the Master. It looks even better in High Def. Fragstein produced it through German design firm Büro Achter April, and concieved it with artists Vânia Oliveira and Moritz Reichartz All three animated the piece.