Bob the Builder (original)

Bob the Builder (original)

Can we fix it? Yes we can!

Genre:	Children's animation
Running Time:	10 minutes
Country:	United States United Kingdom
Release Date:	28 November 1998 – 28 September 2004 (Original Series) 2 May 2005 - 26 August 2008 (Project Build It) 12 April 2010 - 5 October 2011 (Ready Steady Build)
Network(s):	CBeebies (UK) PBS Kids (US) Nick Jr. (UK & US) Qubo (US, but with the UK dub)
Created by:	Keith Chapman
Distributed by:	HIT Entertainment
Starring:	Neil Morrissey Rob Rackstraw Kate Harbour Rupert Degas Colin McFarlane
Seasons:	18
Episodes:	250

Bob the Builder is a British children's stop-motion animated series created by Keith Chapman (who also created other cartoons for the UK and also a Canadian cartoon for Nickelodeon called PAW Patrol). It aired from 1998 in the UK (2001 in the US) to 2012, as the original designs of this show took on hiatus and the reboot started in 2015 and ended in 2018. The next Bob the Builder show with the return of the original designs is yet to be announced.

Why It Rocks

The stop-motion animation is wonderful for 1998 standards.
The theme song is very catchy and fun to listen to.
The voice acting is great, not to mention that some character's voices including Lofty's voice is pretty cute.
Likeable characters such as Scoop, Roley, Muck, Dizzy, Lofty, and Travis and some really funny ones like Spud the Scarecrow.
This show has a cartoony style, which works really well.
The CGI in Ready, Steady, Build! was also pretty good and takes an interesting approach by making the CGI imitate the look of the models rather than do what shows like Thomas & Friends did with redesigning the characters and buildings into CGI.
It provides great morals for kids, such as working together.
Rob Rackstraw doing a lot of voices in the UK dub for other characters in the series is really impressive.
The album version of "Can We Fix It?" is catchy as the original theme song, and it reached Christmas #1 in 2000 during its major success in the United Kingdom.
- Similarly, their cover of Mambo No.5 became number one in UK Singles Charts in 2001.
It had some great specials like "A Christmas To Remember", "Snowed Under", "Built to Be Wild" and etc.
- Elton John even made a guest appearance in one of the specials.

Bad Qualities

While Ready Steady Build is pretty decent, the stories can get pretty formulaic and repetitive at times, this also applies to some episodes in the Project Build It series. Though the repetitiveness in those series nowhere near as bad as it is in the reboot.
The US dub is (arguably) not as good the UK version, while the voices are okay, they don't seem to capture the same charm as the UK version does. Though, a lot of Americans loved the US dub of the show. Project Build It improved it a bit.
- While Project Build It’s US dub is an improvement to the dub from the Original Series, Greg Proops's voice for Bob in the US doesn't sound as good as the other US voice given by William Dufris. He also makes Bob sound too much like Fred from Scooby-Doo.
- Despite being male in the UK dub, Muck was changed to female in the US dub for some reason, it is very unnecessary to change him to a female as no one was complaining about the lack of females in this show, not to mention that it is also confusing for fans of both the UK and US dub (though the reboot changed him back to a male character).
While the animation in Ready Steady Build is pretty good, it can be jarring how the machines talk with their grill mouths as it looks weird for some characters (mainly Roley and Travis).
Due to the fact that Project Build It was canceled, a lot was unsolved.
The show had a godawful reboot in 2015.
Spud (from your point of view) can be really unlikable.

Reception

Bob the Builder was met with positive reception from critics and audiences alike.

Trivia

Bob’s original US actor William Dufris died after a cancer battle on 24th March 2020 at the age of 62.
The UK dub managed to keep the original actors throughout the entire series before Ready Steady Build got cancelled, the US dub on the other hand had their actors change throughout Project Build It and Ready Steady Build.
Seasons 6-9 of the UK dub was added to BBC iPlayer in November 2018 to celebrate Bob The Builder’s 20th anniversary, Seasons 1-5 was later added in September 2020.
The UK dub aired for the first time in the US on Qubo debuting on October 7, 2020. This was likely because Universal Kids still owns the US dub and the episodes were distributed from WildBrain which currently owns the UK dub.

Comments

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Pinky Malinky

23 months ago

Score 10

Can we fix it?

Original: Yes we can.

Reboot: No we're fucked.