Gogs
Encyclopedia
Gogs! is a claymation-style animated television series which takes the form of a sitcom, originally aired on Welsh
television in 1993
, and aired to the rest of the United Kingdom
on the BBC
in 1996
. Gogs has since been aired internationally, and still enjoys re-runs on occasion.
Gogs revolves around a family clan of dumb, primitive and socially inept cavemen in a fantasy
prehistoric Stone Age
setting, and contained various toilet humour-based gags and gross out
situations. It also featured their often comedic daily struggle for survival, and attempts to advance their technology and society, and often failing miserably.
The show was more oriented towards an adult audience than other claymation television series such as The Trap Door
or Wallace and Gromit
, which were more child-friendly than Gogs. Although often called a children's television program, Gogs tended to be shown after the watershed
, and so was often referred to as "claymation for the post-pub generation". Later VHS and DVD releases carried a parental guidance rating.
The original series contained only five episodes each of around five to six minutes long. After winning numerous awards a second series was commissioned with episodes running at a similar length, bringing the total number of episodes of the two series to thirteen in number. In 1998
the last installment of Gogs, a 30-minute-long special, Gogwana, was aired, which was also critically well received and won numerous awards.
animation studio Aaargh! Animation Ltd were among the most prominent of these, created specifically for the purpose of making Gogs. Later Aaargh Animation Ltd went on to produce the animated segments of the 1997
film
A Life Less Ordinary
, and numerous commercials including ones for Levi jeans. Gogs was initially the brainchild of Mike Mort and Deiniol Morris, who fronted Aaargh Animation, developed the pilot episode, and directed subsequent episodes.
Welsh television station S4C
provided some of the funding for Gogs, as did Welsh production companies Sianel 4 Cymru, Harlech Television (HTV), and Siriol Productions
. Because of this, the show is sometimes referred to as a "Welsh show", although this is incorrect, as it was a collaborative effort between other parties. One of these was BBC Bristol
, and so it would be correct to say Gogs was a "British show".
Also, Aaargh Animation Ltd was assisted in the claymation production by English
company Aardman Animations
, also based in Bristol
, who are perhaps most famous today for being the creators of Wallace and Gromit
. At the time of co-producing Gogs, Aardman Animations were also making the short film The Wrong Trousers
. Aardman Animations later went on to make shows such as Creature Comforts
and films such as Chicken Run
and Flushed Away
, and the upcoming Count Duckula
film adaptation
. One of the chief animators at Aardman was Terry Brain, who had, in the early 1980s ten years earlier, created the monster
-based and horror fiction
-themed claymation series The Trap Door
.
Comedian/actor Josie Lawrence
lent her voice to The Gogs, and it is also her shrieking tones heard on the end titles. Noted Welsh actress Gillian Elisa
did most of the voices, however. Additional "voices" were provided by Marie Clifford, Dafydd Emyr, Rosie Lawrence, Rob Rackstraw, and Nick Upton.
The first series was brought initially to a minor Welsh audience by Meirion Davies of S4C
in 1993, complete with Welsh language
titles, credits, subtitles and voice-overs, and thus incompatible with the wider English speaking world. Gogs sprung on to an international platform with the help of Colin Rose at the BBC, who had the show translated for an English-speaking audience and aired on BBC2 in the Christmas holidays of 1996. After this, a second series, Gogs II, was produced and aired in 1997, and in 1998 the Gogwana 30-minute special.
Aaargh! Animation Ltd was bought out by Aardman Animations round about the same time as Gogs ended, meaning both studios would focus more on the latter's creation, Wallace and Gromit
.
Both series of Gogs and the Gogwana special were critically well received and garnered numerous awards. However, Gogwana would prove to be the last ever episode of the show. The high costs of producing claymation compared to the emerging sophistication of computer-generated animation (even one episode of Gogs took a very long time to produce with the small team, little resources and funding they had), and the prime time
slot allocated to Gogs which would be better filled with more conventional sitcoms, ensured that Gogs was not commissioned for a third series or another special by the BBC.
s, prehistoric mammal
s, giant insects, man-eating plants, and other exotica. Even the primeval landscape is a danger, likely to erupt in a volcano or collapse in an earthquake, and the world is wracked by powerful lightning and thunder storms. One of the show's key comedic aspects are crudeness and toilet humour; the characters do not talk, instead communicating with grunts, roars, screams, burps and farts, and overly exaggerated facial expressions. The rest of the show had an emphasis on slapstick, cartoonish violence as the Gogs spend the rest of their time wrestling, urinating, vomiting, bashing each other on the head with clubs, and scoffing food. The show was criticized by some for being too over the top
, and his solution to pretty much any problem is to bash it with it. Gogas is surprisingly one of the more physical of the group, often being the first to fight off giant bears and hungry dinosaurs with his club, although this is down to his craziness rather than bravery. At night, he snores like a wailing coyote
. In the "Gogwana" special, Gogas is given a small backstory.
-like face, shoulder length dark hair, and a dark cropped beard. Oglas is a slobby and lazy lay-about, mostly concerned with dossing around and living life his own way. Although he occasionally goes out hunting or such, he is often the first to run away from danger, and abandon his family in cowardly fashion and is not adverse to leaving them behind in such situations. Oglas often fights with his teenage son Ogo, and his bear-like wife Ogla, whom, despite often crudely fighting with him, also often gives him somewhat unwanted affection.
expression and has ginger hair which sometimes appears blonde also. He is extremely slow and dim-witted, the dumbest of the clan, yet is constantly trying to impress and follow the orders of the others. He always fails however, and usually gets covered in mess or his teeth knocked out. Most of the rest of the time, all he does is pick his nose and eat it, or chases animals such as centipedes and eats them instead.
and pacifist daughter, presumably a teenager like Ogo, although younger than Ogo. She has shoulder-length black hair which also covers her eyes. Igi is the smartest of all the Gogs, even something of a genius many millennia ahead of her time, drawing things such as scientific equations and blueprints of cars, planes and helicopters on rocks. She invents things such as a bird-costume and a hot-air balloon made out of a dinosaur's carcass in the half hour special Gogwana. She is the quietest and least obscene member of the clan. However, also being the smallest and physically weakest, Igi is often victimized or misunderstood, or left behind when the rest are fleeing from danger. Her grandfather Gogas hits her over the head with a club when he sees her advanced drawings, although they give Gogas the idea to build Stonehenge
.
of the show, Ray is a ravenous Tyrannosaurus rex who is frequently attempting to eat the Gog family clan, and is constantly stalking them wherever they go. In the first episode, when the characters are introduced in the opening credits, the T-Rex is said to be named Ray. Ray's obsession with the Gogs may be as much down to revenge as hunger, as also in the first episode Ray is thwarted from eating the Gogs by having his private parts burnt by fire. In the second episode, Oglas and Ogo flee from the small dinosaur, only to discover a massive T.Rex which chases them off a cliff. Ray continues to appear in several episodes in the first series, one episode in the second series and in the half-hour special Gogwana. Ray does however change in size and appearance somewhat throughout the show; sometimes he is depicted as yellow, sometimes orange, sometimes red, and sometimes green. In the first episode Ray is smaller and faster (perhaps a baby T-Rex), and in later episodes he is depicted as slower but larger and generally more menacing. In the final half-hour special Gogwana, Ray, who is again stalking the Gogs, inadvertently saves them when he eats the new antagonist, the Cannibal King.
for Best Animation) for four years running in 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998 at the Welsh BAFTA Cymru
. Again, in 1995 the show won the international Children's BAFTA Award for Best Animation, and in the 1996 international BAFTAs, Gogs won the entry for Best Animation.
The thirty-minute-long special in 1998, Gogwana, was also well received, winning several awards. These included the Banff Rockie award for Best Animation Program Award at the 1999 Banff Television Festival, and also winning the Audience Award for Best Film at the Rio de Janeiro
Anima Mundi Animation Festival. It also won Best Children's Series at the 1998 British Animation Award. It was also nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 1999 international BAFTAs.
in 1997 by Warner Vision International with a parental guidance rating. With the airing of the thirty-minute long special Gogwana in 1998, Gogwana was also released separately on VHS.
Gogs was released as a Region 2 DVD on 9 April 2001 also by Warner Vision International. The DVD contains all thirteen episodes of both series, including the 30-minute special "Gogwana", all on a single disc, with a total run-time of 89 minutes. Special features include a rare photo gallery.
All episodes of Gogs are currently available for viewing on YouTube
.
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
television in 1993
1993 in television
The year 1993 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1993.For the American TV schedule, see: 1993-94 United States network television schedule.-Events:-Debuts:-1950s:...
, and aired to the rest of the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in 1996
1996 in television
The year 1996 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1996.For the American TV schedule, see: 1996-97 United States network television schedule.-Events:-Debuts:-1950s:...
. Gogs has since been aired internationally, and still enjoys re-runs on occasion.
Gogs revolves around a family clan of dumb, primitive and socially inept cavemen in a fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
prehistoric Stone Age
Stone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
setting, and contained various toilet humour-based gags and gross out
Gross out
Gross out describes a movement in art , which aims to shock the audience with controversial material such as toilet humour or nudity.-Features:...
situations. It also featured their often comedic daily struggle for survival, and attempts to advance their technology and society, and often failing miserably.
The show was more oriented towards an adult audience than other claymation television series such as The Trap Door
The Trap Door
The Trap Door was a claymation-style animated television series, originally shown in the United Kingdom in 1984. The plot revolves around both the daily lives and the misadventures of a group of monsters living in a castle...
or Wallace and Gromit
Wallace and Gromit
Wallace and Gromit are the main characters in a series consisting of four British animated short films and a feature-length film by Nick Park of Aardman Animations...
, which were more child-friendly than Gogs. Although often called a children's television program, Gogs tended to be shown after the watershed
Watershed (television)
In television, the term watershed denotes the time period in a television schedule during which programs with adult content can air....
, and so was often referred to as "claymation for the post-pub generation". Later VHS and DVD releases carried a parental guidance rating.
The original series contained only five episodes each of around five to six minutes long. After winning numerous awards a second series was commissioned with episodes running at a similar length, bringing the total number of episodes of the two series to thirteen in number. In 1998
1998 in television
The year 1998 in television involved some significant events.Below is a list of television-related events in 1998.For the American TV schedule, see: 1998–99 United States network television schedule.-Events:-Debuts:-1950s:...
the last installment of Gogs, a 30-minute-long special, Gogwana, was aired, which was also critically well received and won numerous awards.
History
Production of the show was a collaboration between numerous companies and individuals. WelshWales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
animation studio Aaargh! Animation Ltd were among the most prominent of these, created specifically for the purpose of making Gogs. Later Aaargh Animation Ltd went on to produce the animated segments of the 1997
1997 in film
-Events:* The original Star Wars trilogy's Special Editions are released.* Production begins on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.* Titanic becomes the first film to gross US$1,000,000,000 at the box office making it the highest grossing film in history until Avatar broke the record in 2010.*...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
A Life Less Ordinary
A Life Less Ordinary
A Life Less Ordinary is a 1997 British black comedy film directed by Danny Boyle, written by John Hodge. It stars Ewan McGregor, Cameron Diaz, Holly Hunter, and Delroy Lindo.-Plot:...
, and numerous commercials including ones for Levi jeans. Gogs was initially the brainchild of Mike Mort and Deiniol Morris, who fronted Aaargh Animation, developed the pilot episode, and directed subsequent episodes.
Welsh television station S4C
S4C
S4C , currently branded as S4/C, is a Welsh television channel broadcast from the capital, Cardiff. The first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speaking audience, it is the fifth oldest British television channel .The channel - initially broadcast on...
provided some of the funding for Gogs, as did Welsh production companies Sianel 4 Cymru, Harlech Television (HTV), and Siriol Productions
Siriol Productions
Calon is a Welsh animation Television production based in Cardiff, who primarily produce animation series in Welsh for S4C. The company was formerly known as Siriol Productions.- History :...
. Because of this, the show is sometimes referred to as a "Welsh show", although this is incorrect, as it was a collaborative effort between other parties. One of these was BBC Bristol
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, and so it would be correct to say Gogs was a "British show".
Also, Aaargh Animation Ltd was assisted in the claymation production by English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
company Aardman Animations
Aardman Animations
Aardman Animations, Ltd., also known as Aardman Studios, or simply as Aardman, is a British animation studio based in Bristol, United Kingdom. The studio is known for films made using stop-motion clay animation techniques, particularly those featuring Plasticine characters Wallace and Gromit...
, also based in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, who are perhaps most famous today for being the creators of Wallace and Gromit
Wallace and Gromit
Wallace and Gromit are the main characters in a series consisting of four British animated short films and a feature-length film by Nick Park of Aardman Animations...
. At the time of co-producing Gogs, Aardman Animations were also making the short film The Wrong Trousers
The Wrong Trousers
The Wrong Trousers is a 1993 animated film directed by Nick Park at Aardman Animations in Bristol, featuring his characters Wallace and Gromit...
. Aardman Animations later went on to make shows such as Creature Comforts
Creature Comforts
Creature Comforts was originally a 1989 British humorous animated short film about how animals feel about living in a zoo, featuring the voices of the British public "spoken" by the animals. It was created by Nick Park and Aardman Animations...
and films such as Chicken Run
Chicken Run
Chicken Run is a 2000 British stop-motion animation film made by the Aardman Animations studios, the production studio of the Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit films...
and Flushed Away
Flushed Away
Flushed Away is a 2006 computer animated British film directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell. It is a partnership between Aardman Animations of Wallace and Gromit fame, and DreamWorks Animation, and is Aardman's first completely computer-animated feature as opposed to the usual stop-motion.The film...
, and the upcoming Count Duckula
Count Duckula
Count Duckula is a British animated television series created by British studio Cosgrove Hall, and a spin-off from DangerMouse, a show in which the Count Duckula character was a recurring villain. The series first aired on September 6, 1988 and was produced by Thames Television for 3 seasons and...
film adaptation
Film adaptation
Film adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even...
. One of the chief animators at Aardman was Terry Brain, who had, in the early 1980s ten years earlier, created the monster
Monster
A monster is any fictional creature, usually found in legends or horror fiction, that is somewhat hideous and may produce physical harm or mental fear by either its appearance or its actions...
-based and horror fiction
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
-themed claymation series The Trap Door
The Trap Door
The Trap Door was a claymation-style animated television series, originally shown in the United Kingdom in 1984. The plot revolves around both the daily lives and the misadventures of a group of monsters living in a castle...
.
Comedian/actor Josie Lawrence
Josie Lawrence
Josie Lawrence is a British comedienne and actress best known for her work with the Comedy Store Players improvisational troupe, the television series Whose Line Is It Anyway? and more recently her role as Manda Best in EastEnders....
lent her voice to The Gogs, and it is also her shrieking tones heard on the end titles. Noted Welsh actress Gillian Elisa
Gillian Elisa
Gillian Elisa is an actress, singer, and comedian. Early in her career she was known by her full name of Gillian Elisa Thomas.-Career:...
did most of the voices, however. Additional "voices" were provided by Marie Clifford, Dafydd Emyr, Rosie Lawrence, Rob Rackstraw, and Nick Upton.
The first series was brought initially to a minor Welsh audience by Meirion Davies of S4C
S4C
S4C , currently branded as S4/C, is a Welsh television channel broadcast from the capital, Cardiff. The first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speaking audience, it is the fifth oldest British television channel .The channel - initially broadcast on...
in 1993, complete with Welsh language
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
titles, credits, subtitles and voice-overs, and thus incompatible with the wider English speaking world. Gogs sprung on to an international platform with the help of Colin Rose at the BBC, who had the show translated for an English-speaking audience and aired on BBC2 in the Christmas holidays of 1996. After this, a second series, Gogs II, was produced and aired in 1997, and in 1998 the Gogwana 30-minute special.
Aaargh! Animation Ltd was bought out by Aardman Animations round about the same time as Gogs ended, meaning both studios would focus more on the latter's creation, Wallace and Gromit
Wallace and Gromit
Wallace and Gromit are the main characters in a series consisting of four British animated short films and a feature-length film by Nick Park of Aardman Animations...
.
Both series of Gogs and the Gogwana special were critically well received and garnered numerous awards. However, Gogwana would prove to be the last ever episode of the show. The high costs of producing claymation compared to the emerging sophistication of computer-generated animation (even one episode of Gogs took a very long time to produce with the small team, little resources and funding they had), and the prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
slot allocated to Gogs which would be better filled with more conventional sitcoms, ensured that Gogs was not commissioned for a third series or another special by the BBC.
Plot
The series depicts the Gogs comically as being mind-bogglingly stupid and struggling to navigate and avoid the perils of an exotic, prehistoric land inhabited by dinosaurDinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
s, prehistoric mammal
Prehistoric mammal
Prehistoric mammals are groups of mammals that lived before humans developed writing. 164 million years ago, in the Jurassic period, Castorocauda lutrasimilis, a mammal-like animal weighing about 500 grams , had a full mammalian pelt, with guard hairs and under fur, webbed feet, and scales on the...
s, giant insects, man-eating plants, and other exotica. Even the primeval landscape is a danger, likely to erupt in a volcano or collapse in an earthquake, and the world is wracked by powerful lightning and thunder storms. One of the show's key comedic aspects are crudeness and toilet humour; the characters do not talk, instead communicating with grunts, roars, screams, burps and farts, and overly exaggerated facial expressions. The rest of the show had an emphasis on slapstick, cartoonish violence as the Gogs spend the rest of their time wrestling, urinating, vomiting, bashing each other on the head with clubs, and scoffing food. The show was criticized by some for being too over the top
Gogas
The "grandfather figure" of the Gog family and elderly patriarch of the clan. Gogas has a bald patch, white hair, and crazy facial hair. He is completely senile, hot-headed, uncouth and crude, and wants to do things all his own way. His most prized possession is his clubClub (weapon)
A club is among the simplest of all weapons. A club is essentially a short staff, or stick, usually made of wood, and wielded as a weapon since prehistoric times....
, and his solution to pretty much any problem is to bash it with it. Gogas is surprisingly one of the more physical of the group, often being the first to fight off giant bears and hungry dinosaurs with his club, although this is down to his craziness rather than bravery. At night, he snores like a wailing coyote
Coyote
The coyote , also known as the American jackal or the prairie wolf, is a species of canine found throughout North and Central America, ranging from Panama in the south, north through Mexico, the United States and Canada...
. In the "Gogwana" special, Gogas is given a small backstory.
Oglas
The "father figure" of the clan, Oglas is the middle-aged son of the elderly "grandfather figure" Gogas. Oglas has a NeanderthalNeanderthal
The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...
-like face, shoulder length dark hair, and a dark cropped beard. Oglas is a slobby and lazy lay-about, mostly concerned with dossing around and living life his own way. Although he occasionally goes out hunting or such, he is often the first to run away from danger, and abandon his family in cowardly fashion and is not adverse to leaving them behind in such situations. Oglas often fights with his teenage son Ogo, and his bear-like wife Ogla, whom, despite often crudely fighting with him, also often gives him somewhat unwanted affection.
Ogla
The "mother figure" of the clan, and Oglas' mate. Enormous, bear-like and bossy, she is the matriarch of the family. None dare challenge her. Though at times disgusted and disliking of the rest of her family, she does care for them deep down, particularly her baby Girj. When she isn't kicking Girj around. Ogla keeps her dark hair tied with bones.Ogo
The older son. Appears to be a teenager. Has a simianSimian
The simians are the "higher primates" familiar to most people: the Old World monkeys and apes, including humans, , and the New World monkeys or platyrrhines. Simians tend to be larger than the "lower primates" or prosimians.- Classification and evolution :The simians are split into three groups...
expression and has ginger hair which sometimes appears blonde also. He is extremely slow and dim-witted, the dumbest of the clan, yet is constantly trying to impress and follow the orders of the others. He always fails however, and usually gets covered in mess or his teeth knocked out. Most of the rest of the time, all he does is pick his nose and eat it, or chases animals such as centipedes and eats them instead.
Igi
The hippieHippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
and pacifist daughter, presumably a teenager like Ogo, although younger than Ogo. She has shoulder-length black hair which also covers her eyes. Igi is the smartest of all the Gogs, even something of a genius many millennia ahead of her time, drawing things such as scientific equations and blueprints of cars, planes and helicopters on rocks. She invents things such as a bird-costume and a hot-air balloon made out of a dinosaur's carcass in the half hour special Gogwana. She is the quietest and least obscene member of the clan. However, also being the smallest and physically weakest, Igi is often victimized or misunderstood, or left behind when the rest are fleeing from danger. Her grandfather Gogas hits her over the head with a club when he sees her advanced drawings, although they give Gogas the idea to build Stonehenge
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks...
.
Girj
The infant. Cute at a first glance, but is actually very brave and tough and sneaky. Girj is sometimes subjected to the same cartoonish violence as the others, and kicked off screen by the others when they cannot be doing with him, although Girj is never injured and indeed seems the hardiest of the entire clan, laughing in the face of danger instead of running away from danger like the rest of them. What Girj spends most of his time doing is crying and screaming (this such is one signature theme of the Gogs show), and the other Gogs have to desperately find ways to get him to stop. Besides that, he often poohs and gets into horrible messes a lot, and into very sticky situations (usually at the same time). Girj often has snotty, horrible colds, and sometimes blows snot at the screen.Ray the T-Rex
A major supporting character and the primary antagonistAntagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
of the show, Ray is a ravenous Tyrannosaurus rex who is frequently attempting to eat the Gog family clan, and is constantly stalking them wherever they go. In the first episode, when the characters are introduced in the opening credits, the T-Rex is said to be named Ray. Ray's obsession with the Gogs may be as much down to revenge as hunger, as also in the first episode Ray is thwarted from eating the Gogs by having his private parts burnt by fire. In the second episode, Oglas and Ogo flee from the small dinosaur, only to discover a massive T.Rex which chases them off a cliff. Ray continues to appear in several episodes in the first series, one episode in the second series and in the half-hour special Gogwana. Ray does however change in size and appearance somewhat throughout the show; sometimes he is depicted as yellow, sometimes orange, sometimes red, and sometimes green. In the first episode Ray is smaller and faster (perhaps a baby T-Rex), and in later episodes he is depicted as slower but larger and generally more menacing. In the final half-hour special Gogwana, Ray, who is again stalking the Gogs, inadvertently saves them when he eats the new antagonist, the Cannibal King.
Other animals seen
- A moleMole (animal)Moles are small cylindrical mammals adapted to a subterranean lifestyle. They have velvety fur; tiny or invisible ears and eyes; and short, powerful limbs with large paws oriented for digging. The term is especially and most properly used for the true moles, those of the Talpidae family in the...
is a recurring animal in the first series. Gogas is often seen trying to club the mole. - In the first episode, Igi sees an eagleEagleEagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...
flying above the ground, which inspires her to make a bird costume. The eagle was almost hit by an arrow from Oglas and Gogas's bow-and-arrow. - In the second episode, Oglas and Ogo find a man sized, theropod dinosaur eating leaves. It soon notices them, and continues to beat them up.
- In the second episode, Ogo is attacked by a wild boar whilst tied to a tree. The boar then chases Oglas and Gogas, making them fall down a hole. The tree Ogo is attached to is thrown over the pit. The boar continues to urinate and poo on them until Ogla scares the boar away.
- In the third episode, a thunderstorm occurs, driving the Gogs to find shelter. Ogo climbs up a tree and finds a leaf to shelter under, which came from a pteranodonPteranodonPteranodon , from the Late Cretaceous geological period of North America in present day Kansas, Alabama, Nebraska, Wyoming, and South Dakota, was one of the largest pterosaur genera and had a maximum wingspan of over...
's nest. It then carries Ogo in the air and, later in the show, Ogla as well. These creatures are seen numerous times throughout the show. - TrilobiteTrilobiteTrilobites are a well-known fossil group of extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the Atdabanian stage of the Early Cambrian period , and they flourished throughout the lower Paleozoic era before...
s are seen in the final half-hour special Gogwana, which although were marine animals in reality they are seen scuttling along the ground, alongside many other creatures they did not co-exist in the same time with. - A tricerotops skull is seen in the desert, also in Gogwana. In the same scene numerous creatures are seen - a pair of unidentified furry desert creatures, perhaps the ancestors of rabbitRabbitRabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
s, vultureVultureVulture is the name given to two groups of convergently evolved scavenging birds, the New World Vultures including the well-known Californian and Andean Condors, and the Old World Vultures including the birds which are seen scavenging on carcasses of dead animals on African plains...
s, and a desert dimetrodonDimetrodonDimetrodon was a predatory synapsid genus that flourished during the Permian period, living between 280–265 million years ago ....
. The Gogs take refuge in the hulking carcass of a dead woolly mammothWoolly mammothThe woolly mammoth , also called the tundra mammoth, is a species of mammoth. This animal is known from bones and frozen carcasses from northern North America and northern Eurasia with the best preserved carcasses in Siberia...
which had evidently veered mistakenly into the desert.
Acclaim
Gogs received international acclaim and won several awards, initially winning "Yr Animeiddio Gorau" (WelshWelsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
for Best Animation) for four years running in 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998 at the Welsh BAFTA Cymru
BAFTA Cymru
BAFTA Cymru is the Welsh branch of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.Formed in 1991, they hold an annual awards ceremony to recognise achievement by performers and production staff in Welsh-made films and television programmes...
. Again, in 1995 the show won the international Children's BAFTA Award for Best Animation, and in the 1996 international BAFTAs, Gogs won the entry for Best Animation.
The thirty-minute-long special in 1998, Gogwana, was also well received, winning several awards. These included the Banff Rockie award for Best Animation Program Award at the 1999 Banff Television Festival, and also winning the Audience Award for Best Film at the Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
Anima Mundi Animation Festival. It also won Best Children's Series at the 1998 British Animation Award. It was also nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 1999 international BAFTAs.
Releases and availability
Both the first and second series of Gogs were released separately on VHSVHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
in 1997 by Warner Vision International with a parental guidance rating. With the airing of the thirty-minute long special Gogwana in 1998, Gogwana was also released separately on VHS.
Gogs was released as a Region 2 DVD on 9 April 2001 also by Warner Vision International. The DVD contains all thirteen episodes of both series, including the 30-minute special "Gogwana", all on a single disc, with a total run-time of 89 minutes. Special features include a rare photo gallery.
All episodes of Gogs are currently available for viewing on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
.