Budgie the Little Helicopter is a British animated television series, relating to a fictional helicopter and his friends, based on a series of children's books. The characters were based on the books by Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. The show was co-produced by Fred Wolf Films Dublin, The Sleepy Kids Company and Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York for HTV West and Scottish Television, and originally aired on British television in 1994 on CITV, where it ran for 39 episodes. A range of videos, books, and toys were released under the Budgie label. The show aired in the United States on FOX as part of the Fox Cubhouse programming block from 1995 to 1996, and moved to the Fox Family Channel in 1998 as part of It's Itsy Bitsy Time. The series was redubbed with North American voices for It’s Itsy Bitsy Time. In Canada, it also aired on Family Channel from 1994-97 and on Treehouse TV from 1999-2003. On release of the first book, Ferguson was accused by the media of copying the idea for the series from an out-of-print 1960 book Hector the Helicopter, by A.W. Baldwin, which she denied. The series is legally available on Ferguson's official YouTube channel.

Main characters

Aircraft

Non-aircraft/ground characters

Human characters

Episodes

Series 1 (1994)

Series 2 (1995)

Series 3 (1996)

Home video releases

United Kingdom

The series was released on VHS in the United Kingdom by First Independent Films. In 2004, Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment (Through the Universal Columbia Alliance venture) released "The Air Show" on DVD, containing the same episodes as the VHS counterpart. In 2006, Right Entertainment and Universal Pictures Video released a single DVD titled "Pippa Arrives", containing five assorted episodes from the first series.

Internationally

In 1997, UAV Entertainment released some episodes of the series on individual VHS tapes in the United States. In 2007, Jigsaw Entertainment released the complete series on DVD in Australia and New Zealand.