Postman Pat

From ToyReview

Who is Postman Pat?

Postman Pat

Postman Pat is a children's television program originally written by John Cunliffe and was first aired in 1981 on the BBC channels. Pat is Greendale village's postman who owns a black & white cat called Jesse and drives around the village delivering his post in a small red van. The simple storyline enables young children to pick up important characters and themes and the catchy theme tune allows them to sing along at the beginning. Creators of Postman Pat cleverly scripted each episode so the series would appeal to children; the story consists of Pat delivering his letters and stopping to visit other principle characters regularly for cups of tea so children can remember them. Other main characters include Pats wife Sarah, Ted Glen, Granny Dryden, Reverend Timms and Mrs Goggins.

Members of the village help others to solve any problems the day brings; the most renowned problem for Postman Pat is the weather. This issue often interrupts his daily journey and other characters try to help by inviting him inside out of the rain. The calm postman never gets angry with the weather and never has a bad word to say about any of the other characters; this characteristic is what makes him so appealing for viewers to watch.

Pat's history

Logo

The first 13 episodes of Postman Pat were created in 1981; the stories were only 15 minutes in length and proved extremely popular with the lunchtime audience. A number of books and merchandise were sold shortly after. The next series wasn't created until 1991, therefore the original series was repeated annually. The 1991 program consisted of some longer episodes (25 minutes) and also some 15-minute ones, in total 17 episodes were aired up until 1997. Again the series attracted millions of viewers including those who had loved the first selection of episodes.

In September 2004 Postman Pat was back on our screens with another 28 new episodes for children and parents to enjoy. The series proved more popular than ever before obtaining an audience of 3 million people each week. Merchandise is also back on the shelves following the series' success including games, models, toys, vehicles (Pat's van, trains, trucks), play sets, clothing, soft toys, railway sets and more. More episodes are planned for the future, therefore Postman Pat is likely to be around for many years to come.

Pat's appearance

Jess the Cat

Postman Pat wears a royal blue postman's hat, royal blue jacket and trousers with gold buttons, a white shirt, a black tie and black shoes. His pale face is extremely big/long (his face and hat together are almost as long as the rest of his body!) and his nose is long holding up his round glasses. Under his hat you can see his red curly hair poking through and his fixed smile gives him his cheerful appearance.

Pat's van and cat!

His well-known post office van is bright red and very box like; Pat keeps the van in an immaculate condition - it always looking shiny and new. As mentioned earlier Pat's cat is called Jesse and he is black and white all over, he has a round pink nose and lime green eyes. The village is very colourful with lots of green areas due to the rural location, which makes the whole picture fun and appealing for viewers to look at.

Links to toys reviewed by visitors on The Toy Review

• Postman Pat Balancing Parcels Action Game

External Links

• Postman Pat Website