Little Red Tractor gets the toon treatment

UK animation indie The Little Entertainment Company is following up its global animated hit Merlin the Magical Puppy with a second stop-frame series, The Little Red Tractor.

The BBC has ordered a 26×10-minute run of the new show, based around the children's books and videos of the same name by Elizabeth Laird and illustrator Colins Reeder.

London-based distributor Entertainment Rights is down as coproducer and will handle sales outside of the UK, and merchandising rights.

TLEC's first stop-frame series Merlin the Magical Puppy aired on ITV1 and was sold to international broadcasters around the world including ABC in Australia and Super RTL in Germany, as well as networks in the US, Asia and Eastern Europe.

It was voiced by Martin Clunes (Men Behaving Badly) and Dawn French (Vicar of Dibley), and TLEC is expected to recruit more celebrity voices for The Little Red Tractor, which has just gone into pre-production.

The series is expected to be delivered around autumn 2003, and is likely to air on BBC1 in early 2004.

TLEC's post-production facility, Ten Pin Alley, will oversee all the sound work on Tractor as it did on Merlin, and is also supplying pre-recording for the latest EBU animation project, Tom.