Â鶹ԼÅÄ

Big Babies

Entertainment

Combining live action, puppetry and computer-generated imagery, Big Babies is an innovative new comedy series starring two 10-month-old babies with the heads of grown men.

Created by the comedy collective Broken Biscuits, led by writer/director Jon Riche and writer/performer Spencer Jones, with Sharon Horgan (Pulling, Free Agents) as programme consultant, the babies, Rocco and Brooks, would happily sit and watch television all day if Brooks' mum didn't take them out for excursions in their double buggy.

Trips to the park, the farm, the seaside or the pet shop all provide fascinating adventures for these big babies – they may even bump into The Gonch, "the coolest kid in town", who has the best buggy wheels around.

When the kids are away the toys in their nursery come out to play and that's when the trouble really starts. They are led by Budge, a stuffed toy made by Brooks' Nan, who has a thing about biscuits and will do anything to get them.

VT

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Productions

Richard Hammond's Blast Lab

News and Factual

Top Gear's Richard Hammond thunders back onto CÂ鶹ԼÅÄ with a new series of the science-based game show focusing on a different scientific theme or principle each week.

Back in his underground lab, Richard invites two groups of friends to answer questions and take part in crazy experiments. Valuable points and a time advantage are available in the gunge-filled Messy Messy Mess Test, a race against the clock to gather as many prizes as possible. There's also a new test called Snot Bots, where contestants try to cure Richard’s robots of the common cold using medicinal prize discs.

Oliver, his beloved Opel Kadett, has a new, improved Fact Nav 2.0 from which contestants and studio audience must decide if answers to questions are true or false. There are more high jinks with 70-year-old head of security Ninja Nan, while Mini Miss (Richard's former 65-year-old science teacher now stuck as a 10-year-old) sets experiments that viewers can try at home.

The Lab Rats are out in the field trying out experiments with genuine wow factor, designed to ignite the audience's interest in science and, as ever, the winners get to take their prizes home while the losing team has the consoling thrill of having to blow up their prizes.

VT

A DCD-owned September Films/Hamster's Wheel production

Blue Peter

News and Factual

Blue Peter, television's longest-running children's show, returns with its three go-getting presenters, Andy Akinwolere, Helen Skelton and Joel Defries, for a fresh series of dynamic challenges and adventures which take them around the world. 

And this year, they've got a new co-adventurer – Barney, an eight-month-old Red Setter/Dachshund cross, who was found abandoned in a shed in Northern Ireland. He has now been given a new home with Helen

The award-winning flagship series sees the gang take a road trip from Europe to Asia through Turkey, with escapades including spending a night in the ancient city of Catalhoyuk and swimming the Bosphorus, plus the latest Blue Peter appeal is launched and the winner of a competition to find a child to design a new 50p coin for London 2012 is announced. 

After 51 years Blue Peter, continues to inspire children and enrich their lives by entertaining and informing them about the world in which they live.

Blue Peter is also accompanied by an exciting website, with games and plenty of opportunity to interact with the presenters.

TD

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Productions

Deadly 60

News and Factual

British naturalist and wildlife presenter Steve Backshall (The Really Wild Show, Lost Land Of The Jaguar) is back with a new mission to find another selection of deadly creatures.

Following last year's hit series from the Â鶹ԼÅÄ's acclaimed Natural History Unit, Steve and his crew's quest takes them around the globe once again, as they look for animals that pack a mighty punch in their own environments. From oceans to savannahs, from deserts to mountains, from islands to jungles, Steve seeks out fascinating creatures whose unique hunting skills make them awesome predators.

There's the sea-faring killer whale, the tiny airborne mosquito, the giant Humboldt squid and Madagascar's largest mammalian carnivore, the Fossa, as well as lions and sharks. There are also a few unexpected candidates, including the desert elephant and the apparently cuddly chimpanzee.

Deadly 60 is the high-octane natural history series that seeks out creatures that others spend a lifetime avoiding. Steve's adventurous spirit, boundless energy and engaging presenting style have made him a big hit with children.

VT

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Productions, Bristol

Documentary Strand

News and Factual

Following the success of its homelessness documentary series, Sofa Surfers, broadcast earlier this year, CÂ鶹ԼÅÄ has commissioned six more issue-led single documentary programmes, each reflecting a different aspect of children's lives in the UK today. The strand will feature programmes from both independent and in-house documentary-makers.

The team behind the highly acclaimed Amazon With Bruce Parry from independent production company Indus Films will make two films – one about a rite of passage for boys in a Coventry school tackling a gruelling assault course which has beaten many super-fit adults, and another about a group of Irish traveller children in Essex.

Children's indie The Foundation has teamed up with documentary-maker Mick Robertson and Wised Up to produce a film about the election contest for the Young Mayor Of Newham, and Welsh indie Boomerang will be following children whose parents are in prison.

Sofa Surfers producers Walsh Bros will follow a group of disabled children in inner London who are embracing martial arts to increase their mobility and confidence.

Billboard kids follows facial disfigurement charity Changing Faces, which tries to tackle the prejudice faced by disfigured people, in its national search for three children to appear on their campaign posters. The film will follow the different stories of the children involved in the selection process.

VT

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Productions, Indus Films, The Foundation, Boomerang and Walsh Bros

Doctor Who – Dreamland

Entertainment

David Tennant provides the voice of the Doctor in Dreamland, a new animated Doctor Who adventure. Arriving at infamous alien hot spot Roswell, the Doctor visits a local diner where he stumbles upon a mysterious alien artefact. This sets him on a mission to rescue Rivesh Mantilax from the threat of the Viperox and the clutches of the American military.

Georgia Moffet, who played the Doctor's daughter Jenny in the Doctor Who episode The Doctor's Daughter, plays his animated companion Cassie Rice. David Warner (Wallander, Hogfather) also stars as the leader of the ruthless Viperox.

The seven-part series, written by Phil Ford (Doctor Who, Torchwood, Sarah Jane Adventures) and produced for the Â鶹ԼÅÄ by Brighton-based animation company Littleloud, will premiere on the Â鶹ԼÅÄ One red button interactive service and on the Doctor Who website: . It will then be broadcast on CÂ鶹ԼÅÄ and the Â鶹ԼÅÄ HD channel this autumn.

In the run up to the animation, fans will be able to log on to the Doctor Who website to follow a production blog about the making of Dreamland. They will be able to follow the progress of the animation as it develops, with contributions from David Tennant, Russell T Davies and Georgia Moffet.

VT

A Littleloud production

Horrible Histories

News and Factual

Horrible Histories returns after a hugely successful first series bringing to life more gruesome events and ghastly characters from British and world history.

Shot in high definition, the humorous factual entertainment series is based on the best-selling books written by Terry Deary, who returns in a series of cameo roles, and illustrated by Martin Brown. Comedy actors Jim Howick (Peep Show), Mathew Baynton (Horne And Corden), Ben Willbond (The Thick Of It) and Martha Howe-Douglas (The Armstrong And Miller Show), star in a series packed full of strange facts, rotten rulers, gory battles, crazy inventions and weird and wonderful moments from the past. Covering every era from the Stone Age to the Second World War, this new series also adds terrible tales from the Incas and the USA.

Each episode will feature a mixture of sketches from different eras, with commentary from the show's talking rat host. There are also comedy songs and pastiches of familiar television formats, including an Historical Dragon's Den.

Horrible Histories is written by some of Britain's finest comedy writers, including Steve Punt, Jon Holmes (Dead Ringers), Giles Pilbrow (Have I Got News For You), Laurence Rickard (Armstrong And Miller) and Ben Ward (M.I. High).

Children can go behind the scenes of the series, discover fascinating facts and interact with some horrible characters from history in the hilarious Terrible Treasures game at .

VT

A Lion TV Production

Hounded

Entertainment

Hounded is an imaginative new comedy in which Rufus Hound, hapless presenter of fictional CÂ鶹ԼÅÄ science show Funlab, is about to have a very bad first day…

When a scientific experiment on his first show goes wrong, Rufus is sucked into a parallel universe where television and movie special effects are part of everyday life. It's a world inhabited by evil but incompetent "genius" Dr Muhahahaha, who is trying to take over the Earth.

Dr Muhahahaha develops a serious grudge against Rufus, who finds an ally in his Future Self, who keeps cropping up to help him. In a series of fantastic adventures, Rufus is hounded across the known multiverse by Dr Muhahahaha and his irritatingly pedantic chief scientific advisor, Steve.

Blundering across space and time through dimensions governed not by the laws of nature but by the laws of comedy, Rufus meets the comic characters who inhabit the parallel world of Hounded.

Developed by the team behind Â鶹ԼÅÄ Three's innovative sketch show The Wrong Door, Rufus must thwart Dr Muhahahaha and find his way home. At the end of each adventure Rufus crashes back into his own universe, finding himself back in his flat about to start the same fateful day again…

VT

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Productions

Ingenious

Drama

Eleven-year-old Sally lives on a farm in Alderley Edge with her grandmother and friends Spikey and Patch, but all is not what it seems in this enchanting one-off drama by Jeanette Winterson.

The children never imagine that the genies they read about in The Arabian Nights might really exist, until they find an ancient glass bottle with something inside. The arrival of their new friend marks the beginning of an exciting adventure; a fast-moving mix of the crazy and curious, the magical and mundane.

But something else is happening on Alderley Edge. The telescope at Jodrell Bank has been picking up strange signals and local author Lucas Summer thinks there may be a dragon at large.

With help from their new friends, the three children must find the dragon, work out what he wants and save Ruby Farm.

The cast includes Una Stubbs (Worzel Gummidge, Benidorm), David Calder (The Mummy, Bramwell), Ian Puleston-Davies (Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Vincent) and Christine Tremarco (Moving On, Waterloo Road).

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Front Desk Publicity

A Lime Pictures production

Junior MasterChef

News and Factual

Based on the hugely successful MasterChef, Britain's best young cooks will put their flair for making exceptional food to the test as Junior MasterChef comes to CÂ鶹ԼÅÄ for the first time.

MasterChef judge John Torode and Celebrity MasterChef champion Nadia Sawalha present the series, which features eight heats, two quarter-finals, two-semis and a final cook-off for the remaining three children. The budding gastronomes, aged between nine- and 12-years-old, must show real passion, enthusiasm and potential as they bid to become the first ever Junior MasterChef.

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Front Desk Publicity

A Shine Television production

Newsround – Bullying

News and Factual

The UK's only daily news programme for children, Newsround has kept young people up-to-date for more than 36 years, encouraging them to assess the facts, make up their own minds and understand a complicated world.

In November, Newsround presents a one-off programme about bullying as part of a series of specials covering difficult subjects in a sensitive and accessible way, previous topics include bereavement, knife crime and divorce.  

Empowering children not to be passive bystanders, the programme tells how one child overcomes his reluctance to stand up to bullies. After witnessing a friend being bullied, the boy is guided by his celebrity heroes who explain how they beat bullying to become successful. He decides to report the bullies.

In February, a second special, Dangers Online, offers an urban fable about internet friendship. This factual drama/animation follows the real and virtual journey of a girl, "Princess24", as she sets out to meet "BoyPrince14", to whom she has been chatting on the internet. "Princess24" hears cautionary tales from real children, who introduce her to some of the dangers of the internet. In a world of chatrooms, social networking and pop-up portals, can she be sure that he is really her fairytale prince? 

Newsround also introduces two new faces to the team, Leah Gooding from Radio 1 Newsbeat and 1Xtra, and Hayley Cutts, who has two RTS awards for her work on Panorama.

Newsround's website delivers live up-to-the-minute news and encourages children to share their views, engage in online debates, vote on issues that matter to them and watch the amazing Press Pack reports made by other Newsround viewers.

PH

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Productions

Relic

Entertainment

A team of children face the challenge of a lifetime in Relic, a brand new series that brings history to life. The Â鶹ԼÅÄ continues its partnership with the British Museum in this 13-part series in which children visit the museum at night to unlock the mysteries behind its most famous artefacts.

As the brave adventurers search the museum they must complete challenges and confront visions from the past in their quest for answers.

While avoiding the "dark forces" that roam the galleries, they will discover the history behind some of the museum's most famous exhibits, including the mystery of the Easter Island Statue; how the Rosetta Stone unlocked the secrets of Ancient Egypt and the premonition that led to the discovery of the Sutton Hoo ship burial.

Racing against time, their success will be rewarded by "Guardianship of the Museum", but if they fail they face incarceration forever within the museum.

NE/MF

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Productions

Please note the footage from this programme is a pilot only.

Roboidz (working title)

Entertainment

From the makers of Raven comes a brand new adventure game show that is light years ahead of anything seen before on CÂ鶹ԼÅÄ.

The year is 2110, the Roboidz have taken over the Earth and turned against their human creators. The only thing can save the human race are children, but they are also the perfect source of energy for the Roboidz.

Caleb, our hero, renegade and last of the human survivors knows that children are the perfect weapon against the Roboidz and has the power to transport them from present day right into the heart of the robot empire. By putting them through a series of tough training missions, Caleb hopes to gather the ultimate team to defeat the robots.

This futuristic new game show, packed with jeopardy and excitement, promises to be out of this world.

VT

A Â鶹ԼÅÄ Scotland production

The Sarah Jane Adventures

Drama

Former companion to The Doctor and investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith returns for a third series of alien-busting adventures on CÂ鶹ԼÅÄ this autumn.

This exciting series includes a special appearance from The Doctor, David Tennant, who joins The Sarah Jane Adventures – not just for a cameo appearance but for a full-blown starring role across two episodes

Sarah Jane's team includes her adopted son, Luke; his streetwise pal, Clyde Langer; their schoolmate, Rani, who lives opposite and has aspirations to become a journalist like Sarah Jane; and Mr Smith, their Xylok supercomputer, who resides in the attic. Add to that Sarah Jane's robot dog, K-9, and the team is set for six weeks of brand-new adventures.

Highlights include the introduction of a new alien race, the reptilian Veil, and their enemies the Judoon; an extraterrestrial girl who can make people play games against their will; a living painting; the inhabitants of a supposedly haunted house; monsters who want to infect the Earth with a strangely aggressive weed; and, finally, a chance for Sarah Jane to find personal happiness with someone who could be the perfect person to complete her family.

A brand new website will accompany the third series complete with a trailer maker, monster hunt, video diaries from the cast and web games plus exclusive behind the scenes videos.

CI

A Â鶹ԼÅÄ Cymru Wales production

Shaun The Sheep

Entertainment

Shaun the Sheep and his faithful flock trot back for a new series of farmyard frolics this autumn.   

Made by Academy award-winning Aardman Animations using stop motion animation, Shaun The Sheep made his international debut in Wallace And Gromit's feature film A Close Shave, while the first 40-part series of televised adventures has delighted viewers on CÂ鶹ԼÅÄ since 2007.

Unlike most sheep, Shaun is not one to follow the flock. Curious, resourceful and fun-loving, his enthusiasm and inexperience make for sheeptacular shenanigans. Together with Shirley, the enormous ewe, and Timmy, the mischief making lamb (now a star in his own right on CBeebies), Shaun and his flock go about their daily adventures while avoiding detection by the farmer, pulling the wool over the eyes of long-suffering sheepdog Bitzer, and keeping out of the way of the cantankerous naughty pigs.

Made in high definition, the international Emmy-winning Shaun's new exploits include: relocating to the pig sty for a night with the selfish pigs; nursing a set of bagpipes in the mistaken belief that they are a sick emu; borrowing a new wig that the farmer has purchased for a date; and hijacking a line-painting machine to create works of art in the field.

Shaun The Sheep fans can also catch up with their fluffy friend in the Cartoon Works area of the CÂ鶹ԼÅÄ website.

VT

An Aardman Animations production

Sorry I've Got No Head

Entertainment

Starring some of Britain's finest comedy talent, including Marcus Brigstocke, Mel Giedroyc, David Armand (Pulling), Anna Crilly (Lead Balloon) and James Bachman (That Mitchell And Webb Look), critically acclaimed comedy sketch show Sorry I’ve Got No Head returns for a brand new series.

Fast-paced and irreverent, this "grown-up" sketch show for children, in which all the roles are played by adults, features returning favourites Jasmine and Prudith, who think everything will cost "a thousand pounds"; the Fearless Vikings, who are scared of everything; and Ross from the Outer Hebrides, who has the dubious distinction of being the only pupil in a school with just one teacher.

New characters include Embarrassed Louise, who struggles to deal with an unusual problem; an angry Snowman, who battles for equality in everyday life; and a sitcom featuring a family of dung beetles.

With around 20 sketches per show, Sorry I've Got No Head is jam-packed with amusing characters.

VT

A So Television production

Space Hoppers

News and Factual

Interplanetary tour guides Dan Wright and Steve Marsh team up on their action-packed Space Hopping adventures with super brainiac Professor Brian Cox

Together, they risk all to find out what worlds are like beyond planet Earth and delve into the exciting wonders of the Solar System.

Busily working on experiments from their secret underground hideaway in the UK, Dan and Steve make it their mission to find out stuff that they think really matters about other-worldly environments, such as how astronauts go to the toilet? 

Astrophysicist Professor Brian devotes his time to his No. 1 passion – exploring the stars and the globe. He wants to find out exactly what worlds are like beyond our planet.

In every episode, Dan, Steve and Brian take viewers on a journey to investigate new ways to take holidays in space. Imagine taking a holiday in the sun on the Sun, or spending vacations volcano spotting…

Space Hoppers is being made in conjunction with Â鶹ԼÅÄ Two's Seven Wonders Of The Solar System.

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Front Desk Publicity

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Productions

Spirit Warriors

Drama

Inspired by ancient Chinese legend, Spirit Warriors, created by writer Jo Ho, is an adventure-packed series mixing live-action and martial-arts fantasy with digital technology and computer-generated characters.

A school trip to a museum ignites an epic quest for Bo (Jessica Henwick), her sister Jen (Alicia Lai) and fellow schoolchildren Vicky (Lil Simz), Trix (Gilles Geary) and Martin (Karl Rogers). Transported to a parallel Spirit World, where each possesses a special power, they meet Shen, a Chinese dragon, who guides them as they negotiate the realms of Wood, Water, Earth and Fire to seek out 12 Spirit Pieces before evil warlord Li (Benedict Wong) his henchman Hwang (Tom Wu) and their faceless Nian shadow warriors can capture them. There's just one problem – 21st-century kids don't have much experience of making conversation with an ancient dragon.

In a visual spectacle never before been seen on CÂ鶹ԼÅÄ, the young heroes meet a mysterious new denizen of the Spirit World each week as they struggle to secure a new Spirit Piece against Hwang. If they succeed they will save the universe and Bo and Jen's ailing mother. If they fail, the Spirit World and the children’s own world will both fall under Li's terrible dominion.

VT

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Productions

Tracy Beaker Returns

Drama

Tracy Beaker is back and she is in trouble again – big financial trouble. She needs a job, pretty fast.

Devised by multi-award winning children's author Jacqueline Wilson and CÂ鶹ԼÅÄ drama, this 13-part series sees Dani Harmer return to the role that made her name.

Over in the Dumping Ground they need staff, and who better than one of their former residents? Having spent half her life living in the home, Tracy approaches the job of trainee care worker believing that she knows it all, but she finds out the hard way that she doesn't.

Still young herself, Tracy is caught between two worlds – she must earn the respect of her colleagues as a professional without losing the trust of the kids now that she is no longer one of them.

JP2

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Productions