Tiny Tumble
Season 2, Episode 8: "Fairy Wings" (5 minutes)
UK: CBeebies in-house / Mark Mason Animation
CBeebies, Wednesday 25 October, 14:35
Here's something you don't see every day: programming aimed at disabled people.
Tiny Tumble is a spin-off of Something Special, a live-action series starring kids' favourite Justin Fletcher as the clown Mr Tumble. As I understand it, Something Special is developed especially for children with developmental disabilities, and it makes use of Makaton, a simplified sign language which helps children with conditions such as autism and Down syndrome to communicate.
The purpose of Tiny Tumble is to teach children new Makaton signs. In this particular episode, the sign was "star".
Mixed media
The episode starts with a live-action framing device, in which Justin visits a classroom, where four children are making some art with the assistance of two teaching assistants. The animated character Tiny Tumble, a small clown, climbs out of his satchel and "enters" one of the children's drawings.
Here we transition to an animated section, which uses the child's drawing as a background, overlaid with some simple but charming and nicely-acted digital 2D characters. The animation is mimed, and Justin narrates. Tiny Tumble meets a fairy who can't fly any more, because her wand has broken. He tries to create a new wand using his magic pencil, but it's not right -- the wand won't work without a star from the sky. It's up to the young viewers to help, by signing "star".
Back in live-action, Justin teaches the viewers how to sign "star," which is repeated by the children in the classroom. This gives the cartoon fairy a new star on her wand, restoring her power of flight, and all is well.
Animation supplementing education
One thing I noticed about this programme, was that the live action and animation seemed to serve different purposes. The live-action was blatantly educational: Justin addresses the audience directly, using Makaton signs as he speaks, and encourages the viewer to copy him as he teaches them the new sign "star". The animation was just there for entertainment value: although it provides an excuse for Justin to teach the new sign, there was nothing educational in the animation itself. It's just there to make everything more interesting and appealing. And there's nothing wrong with that at all.
In terms of social development messages, there was a nice message of inclusivity. One of the children was visibly disabled as he used a wheelchair, the others did not appear to be disabled. One child was black and the rest were white. However, this did not stop them from working alongside each other happily.
All in all a nice little show, and we could probably do with more programming targeted at people with learning disabilities.
Available to watch online until 23 November 2017.
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