Morph

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A model of Morph on display at the National Media Museum, Bradford

Morph is an animated Plasticine stop-motion character that appeared with the late Tony Hart, beginning in 1977, on several of his UK TV programmes, notably Take Hart and Hartbeat.

Details

Morph was produced for the BBC by Aardman Animations, later famous for Wallace and Gromit.

Morph's 30th Birthday was celebrated in 2007 by creator Peter Lord and celebrity fan and comedian Phill Jupitus at events for the Encounters Film Festival in Bristol.

Morph appeared mainly in one minute "shorts" interspersed throughout the show. These were connected to the main show by having Hart deliver a line or two to Morph who would reply in gobbledygook but with meaningful gestures. Later on, Morph was joined by cream-coloured Chas, who was much more badly behaved.

Morph and the other plasticine characters could change their morphology. Sometimes they would become spheres in order to move around, or extrude themselves into cylinders to pass to different levels. They could also mimic other objects, or creatures.

Morph lived in an artist's wooden pencil box, and he and Chas both loved to eat strawberry shortcakes, as seen in many of the shorts.

Some of the early plasticine models of Morph were destroyed in a fire at the warehouse they were being stored on 10 October 2005.^[1]

Morph and Chas appeared in shorts on the British children's TV programme SMart from 1994 onwards.

In March 2009, shortly after Hart's death, a flashmob of Morph characters was organised in London outside the Tate Modern art gallery.^[2]

In 2009, the BBC drama Ashes to Ashes featured Morph in a guest appearance as a representation of a present-day medic.^[3]

Appearances

Characters

• Morph - the main character with terracotta skin.
• Chas (pronounced Chaz) - Morph's very cheeky cousin with cream skin
• Nailbrush - Morph's 'canine' companion (a nailbrush)
• Grandmorph - a long-bearded grandpa version of Morph, probably Morph's grandpa
• Delilah - a bossy female character in a yellow dress with brown skin
• Folly - a tin-foil girl (renamed Holly for The Morph Files - see DVD)
• Gillespie - a blue, dimwitted but benign giant-like character
• The Very Small Creatures - an array of small plasticine balls with eyes
• Goobledygook - An alien (who arrived on the table by accident piloting a milk bottle-like craft in the original series - in the Morph Files, he arrived by accidentally printing him from the 'space raiders' style game)

Credits

1980

• Narrator: Tony Hart
• Animated, Scripted and Directed by: Peter Lord, David Sproxton
• Special Effects: Peter Harwood
• Editor: Alan Trott
• Producer: Patrick Dowling
• Executive Producers: David Hamilton, Claire Derry

1995

• Narrator: Neil Morrissey
• Animators for Aardman Animations: Mike Booth, Gary Cureton, Dave Osmond
• Computer Animation: Alan Snow
• Dubbing Editor: James Mather
• Special Sounds: Peter Harwood
• Writer: Andy Walker
• Editor: Andrew Hassenruck
• Special Thanks to: The Staff of Aardman Animations
• Producer: Jacqueline White
• Executive Producers: Peter Lord, David Sproxton
• For Link Licensing: David Hamilton, Claire Derry
• Directed by: Peter Lord

See also

• List of The Morph Files episodes
• Gumby

References

External links

• Official Morph web-site
• Information about Morph, with photograph
• B3ta interview with Tony Hart which discusses Morph
• A fond farewell to Morph: Tony Hart article about Morph
• Animation archive up in smoke: BBC News article about Aardman's warehouse fire
• Morph's page on Tony Hart's official site
• Limited edition Morph prints created for Morph's 30th anniversary
• Morph Plasticine Model
• [1]