The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 123

keen for the friendship and respect of his peers, but can't quite seem to fit in. His quest for coolness is customarily inhibited by his duffer of a dad a passionate collector of toilets while his mum looks on with indulgent resignation. Amiable without being overly ambitious. Magic Mountain, Tuesday, 4.30pm From the creators of Johnson And Friends comes another immensely appealing 26-part series which should also delight preschoolers. Shot on extensive and elaborate mutant descendant of Ginnly.

But in this animated series, which combines stop-motion puppetry and clay animation, our squeaky and sometimes philosophical little hero liv es with his pals, Parsty and her blue catdog NikNik, in a rather depressing pocket of deep space which resembles a Mad lrt.v-style, post-apocalypse landscape. uturistic five-minute adventures for little kids in which the nice guys teach hapless space rogues Coredor and Brucho about the valuable things in life. Johnson Afld Mends, Thursday, 4.50pm The 26-part fourth series of this delightful show for pre-schoolers. Johnson, a gentle and well-meaning pink elephant, is the leader of the pack of toys who come out to play in Michael's bedroom. It's a warm, colorful and entertaining place, populated by a handful of charming characters including McDuff, the fiesty concertina, Diesel, the blustery dump truck and (my favorite) Alfred, the grumpy hot-water bottle.

Highly recommended. Retum To Jupiter, Sunday (8 June), 9am Science-fiction adventure series featuring a group of adolescent space trav ellers who are well-schooled in science and technology. Jupiter 'is loaded with jargon about viruses, regenerators and asteroids, and many of its characters including Sonia Todd's dour commander Edwina Dent -spend a lot of time running through space stations narrowly averting disasters. The scripts can be a bit flat and the show favors action over character development. Feral TV Returning later this month (26 June, 5.55pm) are TV's most raucous band of renegade puppets.

Led by Rattus. this rather mangy but highly spirited bunch is involv ed in the running of a pirate TV station. The original half-hour format has changed and this new series comprises 35 five-minute episodes. if Kids picks gukh to the ABC GMUnrt Wat CIIIUMIiNS TKI.KVISION IS AN ARKA OK local production that is chronically undervalued and underfunded. With the exception of the contribution made by the imaginative time-travel series Wisiioiie (Saturdays, 10.30am, Nine), it's primarily the financially crippled ABC that attempts to fill the void in children's programming, especially with its line-up of programs for pre-schoolers.

Turning its attention once more to this poor relation of the programming family tree, Auntie has assembled a collection of shows under the banner of Children's Week, which kicks off on Monday. What's on: Bananas In Pyjamas, Monday, 9.25am These world-famous fruits now chase teddy bears across 43 countries. From September, they will also be entertaining toddlers in Russia. Since breaking out of a supporting role in Play School, Ul and B2 have starred in 200 of their own five-minute adventures and emerged as a big, yellow marketing phenomenon. Tomorrow sees the premiere of a batch of 25 episodes which feature the arrival of a new resident in Cuddles Avenue, Tolstoy the Tortoise.

The Wayne Manifesto, Monday, 5pm Adapted by David McRobbie into a 26-part series based on three of his books, The Wayne Manifesto stars Jeffrey Walker as a wishful thinker trying to make his way in a new neighborhood in Brisbane. Wayne is Wayw's writ Jeffrey Water as Hie wishful 12-iear-eM ken sets in China, the series is made up of 10-rninutc episodes that feature four friends -selfish Panda (voiced by Helen Dallimore), genial Dragon (Anthony Ackroyd), sensible Tortoise (Cornelia Frances) and friendly Lion (Steve J. Spears) who dwell in a lush environment of caves, waterfalls and rolling greenery. The stories are sweetly simple, the costumes are beautifully designed and the characters are very engaging. Plasmo, Wednesday, 5.55m With his huge eyes and morphing plasticiney red body, l'lasmo looks like a through the picture, at your own shadow if possible, then swing your eyes slowly back and forth.

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