h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Charlie Chalk was a Stop Motion Animation series made in 1988 by Woodland Animations Ltd.
The voices were done by Ken barrie, Joan Baxter and Mike Redway. The songs were written by Mike Redway and published by Redrock Music.
The record I have was Music and Songs from the series Redrock Records CHARLP1 .
As the groovy opening title song says:
"Charlie Chalk, Charlie Chalk, he's got a funny way of walking and a whacky way of chalking Charlie Chalk. He rowed a boat to sea to do some sleeping and some fishing (oooh hoo hoo) when he woke he saw an island. Was he dreaming or just wishing?"

CHARLIE CHALK was a clown who obviously fell asleep in his boat and ended up drifting ashore on Merrytwit Island.
He now lives in a caravan which is bigger inside than outside.
Luckily he wasn't alone. On the island he made many new friends.
His constant companion is Arthur, a pink elephant who sniffs a lot (exactly like my sister's friend Rachel's sister apparently).
There is also a ship that has been washed up and the captain, CAPTAIN MILDRED has pretty much decided that she's in charge and bosses people about occasionally. Her conversation is punctuated by letters e.g. "A, what was that? and B, where did it come from?" (to which the answer was "it was a coconut and it came from the er from the sky.")

There is a know-all duck called LEWIS T. DUCK and he's always right.
e.g. "Arthur , tell Charlie I'm right." "Charlie, Lewis is right. Lewis is always right. What are you right about this time Lewis?"

There is a character called TRADER JONES who is the only one who actually does any work. He is a Taxi Driver, an odd job man, a fixer of things, an apothecary and a trader. He often cycles around on his Taxi with EDWARD on the back.
EDWARD is a bear who is always asleep. (I'm not asleep, I'm just resting my eyes is a song on the album)
Once, when Captain Mildred took the day off, she left Edward in charge (hence the song "I'm the boss, I'm th eking, I'm in charge so I'll begin by telling everybody what to do ba ba ba ba baaaaa. I'm the ruler of the gang, no you can't! Yes you can!! I'll decide 'cos I'm the boss that's what I am."

There is MARY THE HOVER FAIRY who is a hover fairy. She looks like a little white-haired old woman with glasses. She doesn't have wings because she's a modern fairy. She has a little yellow hat with a little red propeller on the top which propels her around (and if that's not magic, I don't know what it)

There is THE LITTERBUG. He is a bug who everyone thinks litters the place because of his name. In fact, he's a very tidy bug. He goes around the island picking up litter!!! Actually, it's a little more complicated than that because, although he doesnt know it, he has a hole in his sack!! This means that, although he thinks he is tidy, he actually wanders around trailing litter behind him.

One episode involved the mountain moaning. The intrepid trio of Charlie, Arthur and Lewis wondered into a cave and eventually, after falling down a ravine and unable to get up found a little cave full of furniture. This cave turned out to belong to BERT, a monster. He is big and shaggy and strong and looks as if he's wearing several fur coats. He has a thin neck and huge goofy teeth and sounds a lot like a very stupid Derek Nimmo. Luckily, due to an accident, the clumsy pink elephant fell through the wall in the cave giving Bert a new front door.
Bert says silly things like "uh hur hur hur" a lot.
A typical Bert comment would be "Did I hear you say you were going to build a road starting at my mountain? Cos if you build a road starting at my mountain, I could take trips to just about anywhere, Goody Goody, I'll go and pack a picnic!!"

other delights are the lateral thinking. They needed to flatten the road and they didn''t have a steam roller. After walking round the elephant a few times, Lewis says "lie down here and think of boiling water." Arthur complies going "bubble bubble bubble bubble bublbublblubublbublbublbulbublubbulbbbulbulbbublbl" and Charlie and Lewis push him up the hill and he rolls down to the sea with a splash!!

The program is fantastic!!It has lots of fun characters, lots of interesting little amusing bits, great songs, and it's all so wholesome, just the way a good kids program should be.

I just found an episode on a video and I was wrong.
The pink elephant is called ARNOLD. and he's the one who sounds like Derek Nimmo.

A long entry but I have added it on. Thanks - you obviously liked this one a lot!

It was great!
i notice you changed the elephant to Arnold for me. Unfortunately I mentioned him several times and he's still called Arthur in the rest of them.
Im really sorry for this sloppy research and I assure you it will never happen again.

It was very good research - just my editing that was sloppy again!

You've been doing a good job.
Of course, what we need now is someone to do a puppets page for all those programs with puppets in: Thunderbirds,Stingray, Joe 90, Terrahawks, Fireball XL5, The Woodentops, Larry the Lamb, The Muppets, Fraggle Rock, Bill & Ben, not to mention those that involve puppets AND people : Sooty & Sweep, Rosie & Jim,Tots TV, etc.
I'd do it myself but A)I don't know how to separate the programs out with a nice blure title bar. B) This time next week, the owner of this computer will be back from holiday and I won't get a look in, if I can even connect to this site with his hatred of all things cookie.
C) I'm also a completely lazy git and can't be bothered half the time.

Maybe one of these University students on their 2 hours a week Sociology degree and loads of time on their hands can manage it.
When I was at Uni, (way back when,I remember when this Internet was all just fields) I never had time to piss around on the internet like this. Not that that stopped me which may help to explain why I dropped out.

See page http://www.h2g2.com/A135343 being run by zb

I did. About 2 minutes after I wrote the above.
That zb certainly works fast!!