Rub-A-Dub-Dub was a British television series animated by Peter Lang and Alan Rogers of the Cut-Out Animation Co. They were previously famous for Pigeon Street. The series was produced by David Yates and Joe Wolf. The title is a reference to the nursery rhyme Rub-a-dub-dub. Rub-A-Dub-Dub was animated in a similar way, yet all the characters were anthropomorphic animals. It ran in 1984, completing 25 episodes.

Episode structure

The episodes usually started off with the character Mother Goose and (most often) another character stood by a polka-dot patterned bathtub, with Mother Goose saying "Rub-a-dub-dub..." announcing that there was an item in the tub, an item that will then be relevant to the episode, e.g. "Rub-a-dub-dub, there's a kettle in the tub..." The line would then usually be followed up by another. In this case, the character King Crow appears at the window and says "...And King Crow wants his tea!" The nursery rhymes themselves would be dotted in amongst the humorous dialogue between the animal characters.

Characters

Principal characters

Episodes

Release

It was directed by Lee Bernhardi. It ran on Children's ITV from 17 October 1984 until 20 November 1984 and it also ran on The Disney Channel in the 80s in the United States, Saudi 2 in Saudi Arabia and Knowledge Network in Canada. The series was later distributed on VHS in two separate volumes in North America twice, both by Hi-Tops Video under its original titles 'Rub-a-Dub-Dub' Volume 1 & 2 in 1986–87, and re-released in 1989 under the titles 'Musical Mother Goose' and 'More Musical Mother Goose' respectively. The series was also released on VHS in the UK market by Thames Video under the title 'The Ultimate Nursery Rhymes Video' on 10 February 1992, which has since not been distributed.