Tube Mice
Debut: December 15, 1988
Ended: December 15, 1988

Tube Mice was a 1988 children's animated series. It was about the adventures of the mice who dwell in the tunnels of the London Underground of London, United Kingdom. The series was produced by Honeycomb Animation, and was created by Sarah and Simon Bor.The Tube Mice live in London's ever-busy Underground system, at Oxford Circus, from where they spend their days travelling the network in the hunt for fun and frolics. They get around alongside the humans, via miniature doors and carriages in the tube trains, and their tunnel homes and rooms are constructed of old bits of Underground trash and litter, seconded under the terms of their oft-quoted Mouse Code. The principal mice are a Bubble, Squeak, Vernon and Toaster and this jolly gang are introduced en masse in the very first episode "We are the Tube Mice". In the next four episodes we learn more about each mouse, and we meet their other mouse friends Mickelmouse, Derby, Bo Heemy and Rapper. Stories take us to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, London Zoo and even a strange Underground Laboratory.Tube Mice" reached our screens around the same time as those Ratties. The series features wild watercoloured background angles and perspectives. akin to some crazy childrens' drawing. The scenery is littered with old drinks cans, sweet wrappers and rubbish, as well as inumerable disembodied human legs which step through frame, over and past the mice stars as they progress on to trains, or up and down escalators and tunnels. The mouse tunnels incorporate old drinks straws for piping, cotton reels and suchlike, in a Wombling kind-of-way. Meanwhile, the mice stars themselves have noses that are constantly twitching - or "boiling", if you want to use the proper animation term. It's the same technique employed by Bob Godfrey for Roobarb, and it's used to give extra life to the characters. "Tube Mice" boasts the voices of Dennis Waterman and George Cole in the roles of Toaster and Vernon, and the characters are an unashamed copy of the roles they played in "Minder", which was a big hit series for ITV back then. This spritely series was obviously super-cheap to produce and many sequences are repeated en masse: Hence we regularly witness Squeak having a jolly notion, mice businessmen heading down the escalators, Bubble and Squeak going up, the mice on the same blustery tube platform, and the mice entering their tube train via the same door, with the very same nougat box seat on display. The tight budget may also have extended to the scripts, with at least two stories featuring an escape from a high fall by means of a hankerchief parachute! "Tube Mice" was a very early production from Simon and Sara Bor and Honeycomb Animation, who are currently having great success with their BAA winning series Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids, and the tales of Binka the black and white cat...

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