I worked on the first season of Bluey and it’s so funny he was DEDICATED to using the same animation program as Charlie + Lola and Peppa Pig, so all the animators had to train to lean the program from scratch (it’s not taught these days)
@@watermelon668 do you know what program it was? im at uni doing tv production and one of my modules is in animation so ive got to research a few shows and create a small animation of my own:)
As a child with dyslexia, the words moving about on the page made it so much easier for me to read! Instead of getting lost in the parallel lines, my eyes could follow the squiggly ones. I love how the squiggles match the tone of what's written. It sort of feels like you're being read aloud to even when you're reading it in your head
i owned a few books of charlie and lola, and the format of words and certain sentences actually helped me read as someone with dyslexia, too. i found it quite fun and something ive never seen in other children's books, lauren child has always fascinated me with her works. so healing
Definitely! I just wrote a similar comment and then found this comment lol! I’ve got dyslexia too and the words placing always enraged me to read further with the really cool art work
My mom used to make me pink milk because Lola drank it. I hated normal milk, but I loved pink milk. I was also convinced that Lotta and Marv were siblings, too. Glad I wasn’t the only one who somehow got that idea.
Yeah, though Marv actually does have a younger brother named Morten, I believe? Either way this show was my childhood along with the Clarice Bean series.
@ he does! I assumed that Marv, Moren, and Lotta were step siblings. The reason that Moren and Lotta were rarely together was because of shared custody conflicts 😭
I thought that too! It seemed to me they lived in the same apartment so that one episode Lola talked about meeting Lottas house and it wasn’t Marvs apartment I was confused
One of the most vivid things I distinctly remember about this show was a scene where Lola draws a rainbow by picking up a bunch of colored pencils and dragging them all across the page in a bundle. I immediately copied that the next time I got my hands on colored pencils.
For me it was the rocket episode, where Lola and her friend accidentally break a rocket Charlie made for his school project. I remember vividly going "oh no" in my mind when this happened!
This is actually mind boggling to my inner child that ppl from outside the UK was watching Charlie and Lola 😭😭(edit: damn I really want expecting this much of a response, and Yh consider my mind officially blown! Had no clue that Charlie and Lola was so international!!)
Don't know if you've seen ALL of the animated outtakes (they're all on TH-cam though) but there's two more Charlie ones and one of them was his VA getting a serious case of the giggles because he had to say "mailbox" instead of "post box" for the American version (which I didn't know they changed some words for our version, I just remember watching it on Playhouse Disney and loving it). He just could not say the word "mailbox" without bursting into laughter and his laughter is contagious. 😂
As a kid, I was OBSESSED with Charlie and Lola! I'm so glad to see a retrospective on it but also hearing the creative process behind it was so mind blowing!!! I swear you're covering my entire childhood and I love it!!!
The Clarice Bean novels going from "there's a spelling bee at school!" to "the world is ending and the anxiety of being powerless to change that" really scared me like oh children are feeling it too
I remember this one episode where lola refused to step on cracks on the floor because "there were crocodiles in them" and I still sometimes try not to step on cracks subconsciously lol
As a British person I can tell you that the balloon thing is something we legit did in school. Like attach a postcard with stamps and a return address to a balloon and ask people to respond if they found it. I think only one of the like the 10 we sent out came back though 🤷♀️
Agreed, we did this at least 3 or 4 times when I was a kid, seemed like a standard thing that primary school teachers would do if they'd run out of ideas.
My favorite episode was the one where Lola and Charlie plan a picnic but it gets rained out so they move it all inside and have to convince Lola it's still fun! In the same trend as the "did you GLUE your egg to your spoon?" I remember that one scene where Lola and Charlie are competing to see who can hang their spoon off their nose the longest and Lola just puts whatever sticky thing they're eating onto hers to make it stick longer it always made me laugh- I loved this show so much as a kid thank you for talking about it!!!
One of the weirdest things about this show was how the recycling episode scared me. It was all because Marv and Morton mention having an older brother named Marty who hoards trash and never lets anyone in his room. We never see Marty, we only hear his voice. First when Marv shows the messy bedroom to the others, you hear a voice offscreen shout “Get out of my room!”. Then at some point, Morton goes into Marty’s room to pick up some of the recyclable trash for a school project. At the end of the episode you can hear Marty shout “Who’s been in my room?”. There was something about the fact that these two had a mean older brother that we never see that scared me so bad as a child. I even had a nightmare where I went in Marty’s room and he angrily grabbed me from behind and yelled at me. He just looked like Marv but taller 😂 While I loved this show, growing up, that is the biggest part I remember.
God, I haven’t heard of Charlie and Lola in years. I named my first ever goldfish after them. Edit: Also on the topic of the games, the butterfly one was definetly on the cbeebies website. When I'd go to visit a relative on holidays, that was one of the only game I'd play. In fact, it's the only one I can remember clearly.
It is in this day (well night) that I learn my love for strawberry milk stemmed from someone exaggerating to their child about pink colored milk being a treat? I always thought she called it pink milk as a quirky thing not because it was actually just pink milk.
I remember reading Clarise Bean books and they taught me the word "minute" (pronounced my-newt, means really small) and when we had to list synonyms for "small" in my 5th grade class, i included "minute" and my arch enemy told me it wasn't a real word and i will never forgive him for that.
Side note, I really believe Clarice Bean deserved her own show because of how relatable and underrated she is. You should definitely do a deep dive on her next 💕
So lovely to hear more about Lauren Child. Her work was so inspiring and comforting to me as a little girl! I would mimic the ways Clarice bean would talk and how charlie and Lola would play on the TV show. As I got older I wanted to write stories and make art like her. I was introduced to Clarice Bean the exact same way you were! I love how her character and lettering style was so recognizable even to children.
I literally gasped when you went through the games.. the butterfly drawing, the cloud game, the bacteria one, the horse one!! I also remember the controls for the horse one being terrible LOL.
I’ve had a doll of Lola since I was 3. For so many years, I’d grow a huge attachment to her AND the show, considering it reminded me so much of my relationship with my older brother. He and I are 11 years apart in age, but he and I bonded incredibly well. However, with how much less I’d see my brother everyday as we grew up (because of him going to college), I started forming a deeper connection with my Lola doll, and began treating her as my own little sister. That kinda attachment grew that much stronger once my brother moved out, and even until now, at 17 years old, Lola is the most amazing thing that could ever happen to me. My brother would gift me a doll he got custom made of Charlie, since I’ve always wanted to complete the family (I used to headcanon that Charlie was the same age as my brother, so when explaining to Lola why Charlie wasn’t there, it was because he was in college just like our other brother LMAO) Everywhere I’ve gone, I’d take Lola with me. I lost her 4 times in my life in the most INSANE places, but would always get her back. My mom’s had to ground her tho because we don’t wanna risk losing her permanently, but even still, Lola’s always in my hand, or being carried under my armpit wherever I go. I have breakfast with her, I talk to her, I always have her on my lap when on my desk doing ANYTHING, and I can never sleep as well as I do when she’s in my arms. I’ve even adapted her into stories I write, and even made an OC just for her, since I have an OC that’s loosely based on me. I draw her and I together a lot, and I’ve built her over the years into being more than just Lola from Charlie and Lola, but to be someone that’s personal to me, and base it off of my relationship with her in real life (‘cause yk, i also don’t wanna just take a character that rightfully belongs to Lauren Child. I respect the author so much for how she shaped me into who I am today!). I genuinely adore my little sister more than anything, even if she’s made of cloth. Whether rag doll or not, I love her just as much as I would a human. Weird how a cartoon does that to ya.
an hour-long video essay about a show I had only thought about in passing every once in a while despite being dearly loved by preschool-aged me? sign me the hell up I haven't started watching yet, but I just wanted to mention that I think the show's art style and theme song are a perfect representation of childlike whimsy and creativity. the style is a perfect balance of appearing like a young kid's art project without making it unwatchable in the process. I think that's mainly what made it so charming to me and still does
hearing tomato being said this way when every other word was with an american accent sounded so strange to me and i had to say it to make sure the word sounds real
Also hearing Lotta and Marv's names in an American accent, despite I myself being American, feels weird to me too. I think it's because I've only ever heard those names in the show, while I've heard names like "Lola" and "Charlie" in American accents and from plenty of other places outside of the show, because those names are just more common in general (especially Charlie).
I'd watch the spanish dub of this show when I was embarrassingly too old for it. I think I was like 14 or 15 when I first found it, but there was something so sweet and captivating about it. I kinda wanna go back and watch whatever episodes weren't translated to spanish.
When I worked at a daycare/preschool we weren't allowed to show the kids TH-cam videos unless they're educational. I showed them Charlie and Lola and they absolutely loved it! 😊❤️
I mentally screamed with happiness when I saw this in my recommendation. 😭 I loved this show and book series as a child. I also read Lauren Child's Clarice Bean books from my school library when I was in fourth and fifth grade, which I think are EXTREMELY underrated. I kind of related to both characters as a child. Lola because she's imaginative and a bit of a drama queen, and Charlie because I'm the oldest kid in the family and often felt the need to look after my younger siblings or other people's children.
thanks for being cool enough to make perhaps the only Charlie and Lola retrospective on TH-cam. I'm British so it's always weird hearing people refering to Disney and I wasn't aware of the localization differences.
i've loved this series since i was a kid! fun fact when i was like 5 i went to kindergarten and the teacher said to my mum "aww he talks in this adorable british accent" (i'm australian) and it was because of how obsessed i was with charlie and lola! i even read the books aloud in the accent because of how invested i was in it 😭
I remember reading some of the Clarice Bean books when I was younger and being way more interested in Ruby Redfort. I remember skipping through the pages until I got to the parts where she was reading the books. I remember asking my mum to look the books up or something (she was very skeptical of their existence) and it turned out that they were actually real and I was so excited! A while after that when I was with my dad, we went to one of the libraries near my house they were having a book sale of all these donated books and I found the first Ruby Redfort book! (there are six in total) The plot of the books are somewhat different to what it said the plot was in Clarice Bean, but it's still really good. I was obsessed with the books and couldn't stop reading them, my dad ended up ordering the rest of the series online for me, and I still have them on my bookshelf. It's exactly the type of book a top-of-class autistic child in primary school like I was would like, but I reccomend reading them, they have a very intricate and interesting plot (from what I remember), and they are like god-tier "tween" books. Like, the plot twists???? The way everything tied in together???? More people need to know about Ruby Redfort
im british and this show was seriously my favourite thing ever. i had duvet covers, pyjamas, an umbrella, a blanket (which i still have to this day), a coin purse and a backpack all with charlie and lola on it. also every week i would make an arts and crafts project and my mum would send it into the charlie and lola magazine in hopes i'd get in it, and once i did! i literally cried when i saw my face and name in the magazine cause i just loved that show so much. the fact that people outside of the UK even watched this show is genuinely mind blowing, i always thought it was something unique to growing up as british
FINALLY I've been waiting for someone to talk about this book series for *YEARS* I loved Charlie and Lola for years and hearing Lauren child's creation story was incredibly inspiring and as a creator made me feel so free
Honestly Laura's story inspires me. Im so used to hearing animation retrospective stories where the creators are mistreated and forced to watch as their shows drift more and more from what they envisioned, and i was pleasantly surprised to hear that she's genuinely been living her best life with her creation. I think its very sweet
Damn, that theme song is like a core memory. I loved this show to bits as a kid! I had all the dvds and read a bunch of the books. I used to recreate so many things that they did in the shows. After my brother was born I'd force him to watch every single episode over and over again with me, and we'd play all the online games together. Lauren Child shaped so many of our childhoods!
Oh my gosh, this is one of my favourite childhood TV shows ever! (I'm even from it home country, the UK) I even have all the dvds of the series to this day, so yeah, pretty nostalgic.
It's one of mine too!! It was translated for portuguese (Im from Brazil) and I had all the pirated DVDs, they were sold in fairs with random picked episodes and i was obsessed.
I watched so much Charlie and Lola as a kid, that I used to sound just like her when I was five... I'm Australian. People used to think I came from abroad, it was so convincing 😂 And then fast-forward to now, I love amateur theatre and get to use my talent for imitation to learn accents 😊
43:00 I remember being inexplicably obsessed with all the charlie and lola games, but especially butterfly game, because from what I remember, they had some way at the end to let you view your past butterflies and other peoples butterflies in a little garden, and I was obsessed with trying to fill it with an army of rainbow butterflies.
I loved Charlie and Lola as a kid, but I *LOVED* Clarice Bean as a kid. Mentioning those books unlocked such a core childhood memory. I even had the first Ruby Redfort book, which was a spinoff based on a detective series that Clarice and her friend read in the books.
dying when you brought up the egg and spoon episode because its been living RENT FREE in my braint for over 10 years 🤣I have no idea why i think of it so often lol
41:41 back on the cbeebies site, there was another colouring game but it was rhe butterflies from the intro! you could draw one side and it would flip to the other and animate! they really went hard with C&L 43:02 AAAAAAAAA
DUUUUUUDE THIS SHOW! I remember I was obsessed with it including Pinky Dinky Doo that had the same vibe from what I remember. The chapter that I remember the most was when Lola was obsessed with a pair of red shoes but they were way too big for her and also that I had a crush on Charlie and the imaginary friend of Lola that looked exactly like him lol Love from Chile ✨
Ahhh! Loved this series so much as a kid! I remember specifically the episode where Lola did not want a haircut, and it turned out she actually just doesn't like her hair being brushed. I remember thinking I was so patient and mature, just like Charlie ... in reality I think my younger sister just went along with whatever I told her to do.
oh my god FINALLYYY im kind of stoked that all my childhood memories are being made into hour long video essays now my favorite memory i have of this show is the christmas episode where lola goes on an adventure with santa and brings charlie a pineapple because he was bored of getting tangerines in his stocking. absolute legend.
i was ADDICTED to charlie and lola as a child. i have every single episode on dvd as well! clarice bean and the charlie and lola books were also my favourite books when i was younger, i should try and read them again !! i should also try and read ruby redford, i didn’t know it became an actual book series
Lauren Child was everything to me. I'm from Nigeria, but i lived in South Africa for the majority of my childhood. When i was 7, I had a school teacher who would read stories to us after school while we'd wait for our parents to pick us up. She introduced me to the Charlie and Lola books and the Winnie the Witch books. That was the moment i fell in love with illustration and storytelling. I'm an artist now, and her artwork will always evoke a nostalgic feeling in me.
42:38 Not me but I clearly remember my older sister panicking after she finished the printer paper from printing out too many things from games. I was too small to do anything except play the games but my parents had taught her how to open them for us when we were alone. Great video, I love seeing people talk abt charlie and lola, it aired in my country through cbeebies and so many other shows too. I kinda blame it because i talk with a british accent because that was my only exposure to english (all the disney Channel stuff was dubbed) XDD
I don't recall watching Charlie & Lola but I definitely read Clarice Bean and Ruby Redfort on separate occasions-I actually didn't even know RR was connected to Clarice at all, but I definitely remember really liking all the code stuff because of how it related to my love of Chasing Vermeer, Lemony Snicket, and 39 Clues at the time
12:23 My aunt owned that book! She used to read it to me when I was about six or seven! I remember liking it because I LOVED "Charlie and Lola" (the TV series, because I have an older brother and the big brother mentoring his little sister plot was very relatable), so I was fond of the art style. My older brother and I grew up watching that show together. We often quote dialogue from "Charlie and Lola." The theme music from that show is still a jam and so nostalgic to me. I just re-watched the Halloween episode last week. On the Playhouse Disney Charlie and Lola website, there was a Lola dress-up game that I loved playing and you could print out the picture of her in the outfit in an imaginary environment.
i went to the charlie and lola play when i was younger, i don't remember it very well but it involved the same story as the book about lola not wanting to go to bed and maybe also the tomatoes one. my main memory is that in the theatre's cafe you could buy pink milk during the interval and it was so good 😭 love your videos sm
Even as a teen I remember loving this show 😭😭😭 the art & animation style, the perfectly casted voice actors, the ADORABLE-NESS of lola & lottie, the precious bond of charlie & lola, the PINK MILK omg everything was 10/10 😅❤❤
I think Charlie also directly speaking to the viewer at the beginning of every episode/chapter could also signify the self awareness we acquire as we grow older, Lola is still in the age where she’s so infinitely curious of the world and at the same time has that stubbornness that little kids are known to have
im so glad to see people still talking abt this so recently! i was very into the cartoon series as a kid, in brazil it aired via discovery kids, and i remember it stuck out to me as one of the funnier, more enjoyable cartoons there that didnt feel like it was talking down to me or being too simple, i think it was the collage art style and the snappy sibling dynamic that stuck out to me.
i love that the live shows were puppetry omg the bluey plays are done with puppetry too (though they were 3d plush ones, not 2d) i went to it with my niece last year and i think it's so much more fun than people in costumes! you do see all of the puppeteers but it's done in a way where you kinda forget they're there or they add to the scene in a way that makes it not annoying that they're there :)
little me always felt a connection to this show because my name is Lola and my brothers name is Charlie. My real name is Loren, which is also the authors name. Funny! Great video.
this was one of my favourite series as a child!! I remember begging my dad for the book set that came with a really pretty tote bag to put them in ❤ I still have the bag to this day!
I LOVED this show as a kid. I remember watching it when my brother was a baby. Now that I'm older and I know what it's like to grow up as an older sibling, I realize how the show draws kids in with Lola's funny behavior, and sneakily teaches them how to be gentle older siblings through Charlie. (also I fully also thought Marv and Lotta were siblings! I think it was because they all walked home together as a group)
I gasped when you showed the butterfly cut out game! The memories of me and my little brother playing that game on the Charlie and Lola website came back to me! (We watched it in India on Cbeebies, that was my favourite channel back then!) My, this was a great video!
This is lovely, I remember watching the tv series with the Swedish dub as a kid. I also remember being kind of annoyed that things were not colored in properly haha.
I remember getting one of the Clarice bean books as a Christmas gift and absolutely loving it, then reading the Charlie and Lola books in school and loving them. When I had kids I discovered the cartoon existed and fell in love with it all over again. Such a beautiful show
I NEVER comment on TH-cam videos but I just had to say that this was absolutely brilliant and I am so glad it exists. I’ve loved this show ever since I was a precocious little girl and will proudly admit that I watch it to this day, and yet I had no idea about the creation process and all of the wonderful little details like the personalised Soren shirt!! Thank you so so much for this video, I didn’t know how much I needed it!
You unlocked a DEEP memory with the butterfly design and cutting out game! You are correct it was on Cbeebies and I rinsed it as a child. I remember always saving PDFs of them onto my parents desktop that they had to go through them with me and told me I could only keep three and I cried every time they deleted one! Thank you for reminding me of this gem of a series!
I went to one of the Charlie and Lola theatre productions when I was younger! I could have sworn it was Charlie and Lola's Best Bestest Play, but it was most likely Charlie and Lola's Extremely New Play, since I remember being around 3 or 4, and I turned 4 in 2012. My twin sister and I still have t-shirts from the theatre show somewhere in our house, which are basically the only things that made me remember ever actually seeing the production.
such a blast from the past with this one! i loved the charlie and lola show and read a few of the books too. my family had the dvds of a bunch of the episodes and me and my brother would watch them a lot. also read the clarice bean books and the first three ruby redfort books when they first came out (had to get them internationally). an icon, truly
I LOVEEED Charlie and Lola when I was a kid!!! But I only found out they where british like LAST YEAR 😭😭 I’m mexican and i watched it dubbed into latin american spanish on cds so I always assumed they were american 😭😭
Here in Mexico the show was really popular and me n my sisters loved it, we had this dvd and I vividly remember an episode where Lola goes to a sleepover with her friend but forgets her suitcase and they imagine the things she doesn’t have like a wand n stuff, also when she realizes she forgot her suitcase she was about to eat mashed potatoes and it flies from her spoon, like THE DETAILS 😭🩷
Lauren child is one of my favourite authors and artists of all time! her paper collage style really inspired me and is just so fun, i’m surprised there isn’t more children shows like charlie and lola.
I really loved this video! I never knew about Lauren Child's career aside from Charlie and Lola. She seems like a really cool and inspirational lady! I also really liked your Angelina Ballerina video as I grew up with both of these. Would you ever consider deep diving other UK based children's media from the 2000s such as Kipper the dog? I think it's awesome to look into the creation side of these childhood books that I never even knew about!
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The only thing I remember from this show is that it taught child me that you can place a spoon on your nose and it will stick. Truly mind blowing.
me too! that and the chocolate milk!
it made me love strawberry milk as a kid too
but with jelly right?
I’ve never gotten that to work
Omg you just unlocked another one of my core memories
"I have this little sister Lola, She is small and very funny"
MY CHILDHOOD!!!!
SAME
I can hear him say it
girl i nicknamed my litter sister lola BECAUSE OF THIS SHOW.
FINALLY, TH-cam HAS RECOMMEND THIS, AND ITS A CHILD HOOD MEMORY
CHARLIE IS 7?? I thought he was a teenager😭😭😭
Yeah same
I thought Charlie was a tween
Same
Same I thought around 12
I thought he was a girl!!!
the pink milk episode of the show is ingrained in my brain
Yes! I was waiting to see this comment
like whenever i think of charlie & lola, i think of pink milk 😭😭😭
Omgggggg u spoke my mind 💥💥
NO LITERALLY ALTERED MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY they way i got pink milk everyday In cafeteria bc of this show as a kid😭😭😭
@@adrianna.christina 😭 frrrrr
FUN FACT! Joe Brumm (creator of Bluey) worked as an animator on a few episodes of Charlie and Lola throughout seasons 2-3 !
You can see in credits of some episodes and his IMDB page, BONUS FACT, his wife Suzy Brumm worked as a designer on Charlie and Lola!
I worked on the first season of Bluey and it’s so funny he was DEDICATED to using the same animation program as Charlie + Lola and Peppa Pig, so all the animators had to train to lean the program from scratch (it’s not taught these days)
I felt those two shows had the same DNA!
Haha- thats awesome
No wonder i felt some peculiar nostalgia while watching it 😂
@@watermelon668 do you know what program it was? im at uni doing tv production and one of my modules is in animation so ive got to research a few shows and create a small animation of my own:)
As a child with dyslexia, the words moving about on the page made it so much easier for me to read! Instead of getting lost in the parallel lines, my eyes could follow the squiggly ones. I love how the squiggles match the tone of what's written. It sort of feels like you're being read aloud to even when you're reading it in your head
i owned a few books of charlie and lola, and the format of words and certain sentences actually helped me read as someone with dyslexia, too. i found it quite fun and something ive never seen in other children's books, lauren child has always fascinated me with her works. so healing
Definitely! I just wrote a similar comment and then found this comment lol! I’ve got dyslexia too and the words placing always enraged me to read further with the really cool art work
Wow I never thought that might have been why I liked these so much. 😊
I’m not dyslexic but I was always great at reading books like that and I was terrible with any academic things
My mom used to make me pink milk because Lola drank it. I hated normal milk, but I loved pink milk. I was also convinced that Lotta and Marv were siblings, too. Glad I wasn’t the only one who somehow got that idea.
Yeah, though Marv actually does have a younger brother named Morten, I believe?
Either way this show was my childhood along with the Clarice Bean series.
@ he does! I assumed that Marv, Moren, and Lotta were step siblings. The reason that Moren and Lotta were rarely together was because of shared custody conflicts 😭
Oh my goddd the pink milk! I recently bought a strawberry flavouring powder to relive my pink milk nostalgia. But it was so bad.....
@@rachael5300strawberry syrup gives you a better taste
I thought that too! It seemed to me they lived in the same apartment so that one episode Lola talked about meeting Lottas house and it wasn’t Marvs apartment I was confused
One of the most vivid things I distinctly remember about this show was a scene where Lola draws a rainbow by picking up a bunch of colored pencils and dragging them all across the page in a bundle. I immediately copied that the next time I got my hands on colored pencils.
omg yeah me too! wow this show influenced me more than i remembered
For me it was the rocket episode, where Lola and her friend accidentally break a rocket Charlie made for his school project. I remember vividly going "oh no" in my mind when this happened!
Oh yea, i remember doing that too! I think!
God, this feels like lost media-
@@magicvalgirl omg!! i remember that one too!! aaaa this was such a good show
You too? That's one of my earliest memories!
This is actually mind boggling to my inner child
that ppl from outside the UK was watching Charlie and Lola 😭😭(edit: damn I really want expecting this much of a response, and Yh consider my mind officially blown! Had no clue that Charlie and Lola was so international!!)
right??
I was watching it in turkish in turkey 🤭
I’m from mexico and it also aired here!!
I am American and yes indeed. I loved that show.
it aired in brazil too!!
OMG charlies VA being so excited to voice a giraffe is so precious
Don't know if you've seen ALL of the animated outtakes (they're all on TH-cam though) but there's two more Charlie ones and one of them was his VA getting a serious case of the giggles because he had to say "mailbox" instead of "post box" for the American version (which I didn't know they changed some words for our version, I just remember watching it on Playhouse Disney and loving it). He just could not say the word "mailbox" without bursting into laughter and his laughter is contagious. 😂
As a kid, I was OBSESSED with Charlie and Lola! I'm so glad to see a retrospective on it but also hearing the creative process behind it was so mind blowing!!! I swear you're covering my entire childhood and I love it!!!
WAIT. YOU WERE?! MY FAVOURITE VOCA/NERDY CRAP YT?!
omg we have another thing in common that isn't being nerds
The Clarice Bean novels going from "there's a spelling bee at school!" to "the world is ending and the anxiety of being powerless to change that" really scared me like oh children are feeling it too
i remember that so clearly
loved the books so much
I remember this one episode where lola refused to step on cracks on the floor because "there were crocodiles in them" and I still sometimes try not to step on cracks subconsciously lol
Omds THIS
Also I remember an episode where lola and lotta were playing with lights. I became obsessed with neon things after that!
The Charlie and Lola cartoon always just had this rly sweet, and calming charm to them 😭 Charlie reminds me a lot of my brother
it calmed me down as a kid! its still so nostalgic to me
I watched it as a young adult and enjoyed the vibes lol
As a British person I can tell you that the balloon thing is something we legit did in school. Like attach a postcard with stamps and a return address to a balloon and ask people to respond if they found it. I think only one of the like the 10 we sent out came back though 🤷♀️
yeah we did it too, and my little cousins have done it more recently so it seems to still be a thing
Agreed, we did this at least 3 or 4 times when I was a kid, seemed like a standard thing that primary school teachers would do if they'd run out of ideas.
oh we did this as a kid too! Never got one back tho
Yep! IDK if British kids do this anymore but I certainly did this a couple of times as a child 🎈
Yep did this!! Never got one back but was still really good fun
the charlie and lola butterfly painting game is such a core memory for british 00s kids omg
My favorite episode was the one where Lola and Charlie plan a picnic but it gets rained out so they move it all inside and have to convince Lola it's still fun!
In the same trend as the "did you GLUE your egg to your spoon?" I remember that one scene where Lola and Charlie are competing to see who can hang their spoon off their nose the longest and Lola just puts whatever sticky thing they're eating onto hers to make it stick longer it always made me laugh- I loved this show so much as a kid thank you for talking about it!!!
omg same the picnic one was always my favourite
The picnic episode is one of my favorites as well! ❤
One of the weirdest things about this show was how the recycling episode scared me. It was all because Marv and Morton mention having an older brother named Marty who hoards trash and never lets anyone in his room. We never see Marty, we only hear his voice. First when Marv shows the messy bedroom to the others, you hear a voice offscreen shout “Get out of my room!”. Then at some point, Morton goes into Marty’s room to pick up some of the recyclable trash for a school project. At the end of the episode you can hear Marty shout “Who’s been in my room?”.
There was something about the fact that these two had a mean older brother that we never see that scared me so bad as a child. I even had a nightmare where I went in Marty’s room and he angrily grabbed me from behind and yelled at me. He just looked like Marv but taller 😂
While I loved this show, growing up, that is the biggest part I remember.
God, I haven’t heard of Charlie and Lola in years. I named my first ever goldfish after them.
Edit: Also on the topic of the games, the butterfly one was definetly on the cbeebies website. When I'd go to visit a relative on holidays, that was one of the only game I'd play. In fact, it's the only one I can remember clearly.
Same but hamsters mine was Lola and my sister’s was Soren Lorenson😂
Man, also forgot about Charlie and Lola until this video.
same
It is in this day (well night) that I learn my love for strawberry milk stemmed from someone exaggerating to their child about pink colored milk being a treat? I always thought she called it pink milk as a quirky thing not because it was actually just pink milk.
Same!! I loved my pink milk as a kid and didn't know it came from this show lol, I do remember loving the show though
I remember reading Clarise Bean books and they taught me the word "minute" (pronounced my-newt, means really small) and when we had to list synonyms for "small" in my 5th grade class, i included "minute" and my arch enemy told me it wasn't a real word and i will never forgive him for that.
This is so dramatic I’m obsessed
Side note, I really believe Clarice Bean deserved her own show because of how relatable and underrated she is. You should definitely do a deep dive on her next 💕
and ruby redfort too!! her books were so good
Despite me not remembering too much of the show, even as a kid i was like "this style is so cute and the show is so calming :)"
So lovely to hear more about Lauren Child. Her work was so inspiring and comforting to me as a little girl! I would mimic the ways Clarice bean would talk and how charlie and Lola would play on the TV show. As I got older I wanted to write stories and make art like her.
I was introduced to Clarice Bean the exact same way you were! I love how her character and lettering style was so recognizable even to children.
Hearing those child voice actors again after so many years really sent me back - I recognised their voices immediately!
I literally gasped when you went through the games.. the butterfly drawing, the cloud game, the bacteria one, the horse one!! I also remember the controls for the horse one being terrible LOL.
The horse and butterfly ones were my favs.
THE HORSE GAME. TGHE HORSE GAMNE IKNOW EXACTLY WHAT THIS IS
I’ve had a doll of Lola since I was 3. For so many years, I’d grow a huge attachment to her AND the show, considering it reminded me so much of my relationship with my older brother. He and I are 11 years apart in age, but he and I bonded incredibly well. However, with how much less I’d see my brother everyday as we grew up (because of him going to college), I started forming a deeper connection with my Lola doll, and began treating her as my own little sister.
That kinda attachment grew that much stronger once my brother moved out, and even until now, at 17 years old, Lola is the most amazing thing that could ever happen to me. My brother would gift me a doll he got custom made of Charlie, since I’ve always wanted to complete the family (I used to headcanon that Charlie was the same age as my brother, so when explaining to Lola why Charlie wasn’t there, it was because he was in college just like our other brother LMAO)
Everywhere I’ve gone, I’d take Lola with me. I lost her 4 times in my life in the most INSANE places, but would always get her back. My mom’s had to ground her tho because we don’t wanna risk losing her permanently, but even still, Lola’s always in my hand, or being carried under my armpit wherever I go. I have breakfast with her, I talk to her, I always have her on my lap when on my desk doing ANYTHING, and I can never sleep as well as I do when she’s in my arms.
I’ve even adapted her into stories I write, and even made an OC just for her, since I have an OC that’s loosely based on me. I draw her and I together a lot, and I’ve built her over the years into being more than just Lola from Charlie and Lola, but to be someone that’s personal to me, and base it off of my relationship with her in real life (‘cause yk, i also don’t wanna just take a character that rightfully belongs to Lauren Child. I respect the author so much for how she shaped me into who I am today!). I genuinely adore my little sister more than anything, even if she’s made of cloth. Whether rag doll or not, I love her just as much as I would a human.
Weird how a cartoon does that to ya.
this is super wholesome 😭🥹
11:25 I remember being obsessed with pink milk as a kid because of Charlie and Lola, what a memory to be unlocked
core childhood memory is reading one of these books, accidentally hitting my mouth with the hardcover while closing it, and my front teeth falling out
Hopefully your first!
an hour-long video essay about a show I had only thought about in passing every once in a while despite being dearly loved by preschool-aged me? sign me the hell up
I haven't started watching yet, but I just wanted to mention that I think the show's art style and theme song are a perfect representation of childlike whimsy and creativity. the style is a perfect balance of appearing like a young kid's art project without making it unwatchable in the process. I think that's mainly what made it so charming to me and still does
AG, Pixie Hollow, Angelina AND Charlie and Lola ?! You're covering my entire childhood as an early 2000s kid
Same!!!
Same with me but as a late 2000s kid
The fact I read about Clarice Bean having a list of worries makes my adult anxiety make a lot more sense...
hearing tomato being said this way when every other word was with an american accent sounded so strange to me and i had to say it to make sure the word sounds real
Also hearing Lotta and Marv's names in an American accent, despite I myself being American, feels weird to me too. I think it's because I've only ever heard those names in the show, while I've heard names like "Lola" and "Charlie" in American accents and from plenty of other places outside of the show, because those names are just more common in general (especially Charlie).
I'd watch the spanish dub of this show when I was embarrassingly too old for it. I think I was like 14 or 15 when I first found it, but there was something so sweet and captivating about it. I kinda wanna go back and watch whatever episodes weren't translated to spanish.
When I worked at a daycare/preschool we weren't allowed to show the kids TH-cam videos unless they're educational. I showed them Charlie and Lola and they absolutely loved it! 😊❤️
I mentally screamed with happiness when I saw this in my recommendation. 😭 I loved this show and book series as a child. I also read Lauren Child's Clarice Bean books from my school library when I was in fourth and fifth grade, which I think are EXTREMELY underrated.
I kind of related to both characters as a child. Lola because she's imaginative and a bit of a drama queen, and Charlie because I'm the oldest kid in the family and often felt the need to look after my younger siblings or other people's children.
ruby redfort was my favorite series in middle school-lauren child is an international treasure
I loved Ruby Redfort
heck yeah ruby redfort! i was looking for a comment mentioning it
my brother had this theory that the imaginary friend was lola's dead twin 💀
Why did I think the same thing as a kid 😭
thanks for being cool enough to make perhaps the only Charlie and Lola retrospective on TH-cam. I'm British so it's always weird hearing people refering to Disney and I wasn't aware of the localization differences.
i've loved this series since i was a kid! fun fact when i was like 5 i went to kindergarten and the teacher said to my mum "aww he talks in this adorable british accent" (i'm australian) and it was because of how obsessed i was with charlie and lola! i even read the books aloud in the accent because of how invested i was in it 😭
I remember reading some of the Clarice Bean books when I was younger and being way more interested in Ruby Redfort. I remember skipping through the pages until I got to the parts where she was reading the books. I remember asking my mum to look the books up or something (she was very skeptical of their existence) and it turned out that they were actually real and I was so excited!
A while after that when I was with my dad, we went to one of the libraries near my house they were having a book sale of all these donated books and I found the first Ruby Redfort book! (there are six in total) The plot of the books are somewhat different to what it said the plot was in Clarice Bean, but it's still really good. I was obsessed with the books and couldn't stop reading them, my dad ended up ordering the rest of the series online for me, and I still have them on my bookshelf.
It's exactly the type of book a top-of-class autistic child in primary school like I was would like, but I reccomend reading them, they have a very intricate and interesting plot (from what I remember), and they are like god-tier "tween" books.
Like, the plot twists???? The way everything tied in together???? More people need to know about Ruby Redfort
Oh my god yes i am OBSESSED with the Ruby redfort books!! But no one seems to know them 😭😭
beetles bugs and butterflies is a childhood staple for me
im british and this show was seriously my favourite thing ever. i had duvet covers, pyjamas, an umbrella, a blanket (which i still have to this day), a coin purse and a backpack all with charlie and lola on it. also every week i would make an arts and crafts project and my mum would send it into the charlie and lola magazine in hopes i'd get in it, and once i did! i literally cried when i saw my face and name in the magazine cause i just loved that show so much. the fact that people outside of the UK even watched this show is genuinely mind blowing, i always thought it was something unique to growing up as british
FINALLY
I've been waiting for someone to talk about this book series for *YEARS*
I loved Charlie and Lola for years and hearing Lauren child's creation story was incredibly inspiring and as a creator made me feel so free
Honestly Laura's story inspires me. Im so used to hearing animation retrospective stories where the creators are mistreated and forced to watch as their shows drift more and more from what they envisioned, and i was pleasantly surprised to hear that she's genuinely been living her best life with her creation. I think its very sweet
Charlie and Lola is like this blurry memory from my childhood, I’m so glad i remember the name
Damn, that theme song is like a core memory. I loved this show to bits as a kid! I had all the dvds and read a bunch of the books. I used to recreate so many things that they did in the shows. After my brother was born I'd force him to watch every single episode over and over again with me, and we'd play all the online games together. Lauren Child shaped so many of our childhoods!
Oh my gosh, this is one of my favourite childhood TV shows ever! (I'm even from it home country, the UK) I even have all the dvds of the series to this day, so yeah, pretty nostalgic.
It's one of mine too!! It was translated for portuguese (Im from Brazil) and I had all the pirated DVDs, they were sold in fairs with random picked episodes and i was obsessed.
did you have the books with the little cds read in their voices? god it was good content
Yeah I remember feeling disappointed when the episodes ended since they were kinda short!
I had one DVD (volume 4, maybe?) and it was technically my first ever box set.
I watched so much Charlie and Lola as a kid, that I used to sound just like her when I was five...
I'm Australian.
People used to think I came from abroad, it was so convincing 😂
And then fast-forward to now, I love amateur theatre and get to use my talent for imitation to learn accents 😊
43:00 I remember being inexplicably obsessed with all the charlie and lola games, but especially butterfly game, because from what I remember, they had some way at the end to let you view your past butterflies and other peoples butterflies in a little garden, and I was obsessed with trying to fill it with an army of rainbow butterflies.
I loved Charlie and Lola as a kid, but I *LOVED* Clarice Bean as a kid. Mentioning those books unlocked such a core childhood memory. I even had the first Ruby Redfort book, which was a spinoff based on a detective series that Clarice and her friend read in the books.
dying when you brought up the egg and spoon episode because its been living RENT FREE in my braint for over 10 years 🤣I have no idea why i think of it so often lol
41:41 back on the cbeebies site, there was another colouring game but it was rhe butterflies from the intro! you could draw one side and it would flip to the other and animate! they really went hard with C&L
43:02 AAAAAAAAA
DUUUUUUDE THIS SHOW! I remember I was obsessed with it including Pinky Dinky Doo that had the same vibe from what I remember. The chapter that I remember the most was when Lola was obsessed with a pair of red shoes but they were way too big for her and also that I had a crush on Charlie and the imaginary friend of Lola that looked exactly like him lol
Love from Chile ✨
23:26 i am OBSESSED
SO ADORABLE😭❤
26:26 I totally thought Marv and Lotta were siblings as well!
I had to pause the video and just sit there for a couple minutes processing this shocking information
How can they be? They are different races? Adopted perhaps but it seems unlikely.
MEMORIES UNLOCKED OMG... was and now still am obsessed with the Charlie & Lola art style and animation its so cute
Ahhh! Loved this series so much as a kid! I remember specifically the episode where Lola did not want a haircut, and it turned out she actually just doesn't like her hair being brushed. I remember thinking I was so patient and mature, just like Charlie ... in reality I think my younger sister just went along with whatever I told her to do.
oh my god
FINALLYYY
im kind of stoked that all my childhood memories are being made into hour long video essays now
my favorite memory i have of this show is the christmas episode where lola goes on an adventure with santa and brings charlie a pineapple because he was bored of getting tangerines in his stocking. absolute legend.
i was ADDICTED to charlie and lola as a child. i have every single episode on dvd as well! clarice bean and the charlie and lola books were also my favourite books when i was younger, i should try and read them again !! i should also try and read ruby redford, i didn’t know it became an actual book series
Lauren Child was everything to me. I'm from Nigeria, but i lived in South Africa for the majority of my childhood. When i was 7, I had a school teacher who would read stories to us after school while we'd wait for our parents to pick us up. She introduced me to the Charlie and Lola books and the Winnie the Witch books. That was the moment i fell in love with illustration and storytelling.
I'm an artist now, and her artwork will always evoke a nostalgic feeling in me.
42:38 Not me but I clearly remember my older sister panicking after she finished the printer paper from printing out too many things from games. I was too small to do anything except play the games but my parents had taught her how to open them for us when we were alone.
Great video, I love seeing people talk abt charlie and lola, it aired in my country through cbeebies and so many other shows too. I kinda blame it because i talk with a british accent because that was my only exposure to english (all the disney Channel stuff was dubbed) XDD
I don't recall watching Charlie & Lola but I definitely read Clarice Bean and Ruby Redfort on separate occasions-I actually didn't even know RR was connected to Clarice at all, but I definitely remember really liking all the code stuff because of how it related to my love of Chasing Vermeer, Lemony Snicket, and 39 Clues at the time
I also love those code and mystery books like lemony snicket, RR and 39 clues
Man, that last one was a loooong series
12:23 My aunt owned that book! She used to read it to me when I was about six or seven! I remember liking it because I LOVED "Charlie and Lola" (the TV series, because I have an older brother and the big brother mentoring his little sister plot was very relatable), so I was fond of the art style. My older brother and I grew up watching that show together. We often quote dialogue from "Charlie and Lola." The theme music from that show is still a jam and so nostalgic to me. I just re-watched the Halloween episode last week. On the Playhouse Disney Charlie and Lola website, there was a Lola dress-up game that I loved playing and you could print out the picture of her in the outfit in an imaginary environment.
i went to the charlie and lola play when i was younger, i don't remember it very well but it involved the same story as the book about lola not wanting to go to bed and maybe also the tomatoes one. my main memory is that in the theatre's cafe you could buy pink milk during the interval and it was so good 😭 love your videos sm
Even as a teen I remember loving this show 😭😭😭 the art & animation style, the perfectly casted voice actors, the ADORABLE-NESS of lola & lottie, the precious bond of charlie & lola, the PINK MILK omg everything was 10/10 😅❤❤
I think Charlie also directly speaking to the viewer at the beginning of every episode/chapter could also signify the self awareness we acquire as we grow older, Lola is still in the age where she’s so infinitely curious of the world and at the same time has that stubbornness that little kids are known to have
im so glad to see people still talking abt this so recently! i was very into the cartoon series as a kid, in brazil it aired via discovery kids, and i remember it stuck out to me as one of the funnier, more enjoyable cartoons there that didnt feel like it was talking down to me or being too simple, i think it was the collage art style and the snappy sibling dynamic that stuck out to me.
i love that the live shows were puppetry omg the bluey plays are done with puppetry too (though they were 3d plush ones, not 2d) i went to it with my niece last year and i think it's so much more fun than people in costumes! you do see all of the puppeteers but it's done in a way where you kinda forget they're there or they add to the scene in a way that makes it not annoying that they're there :)
little me always felt a connection to this show because my name is Lola and my brothers name is Charlie. My real name is Loren, which is also the authors name. Funny!
Great video.
Im from the UK and i grew up with Charlie and Lola. I also had that Pippi Longstocking book and i loved it so much and I read it all the time.
this was one of my favourite series as a child!! I remember begging my dad for the book set that came with a really pretty tote bag to put them in ❤ I still have the bag to this day!
When you showed the princess and the bean adaptation my jaw actually dropped, i fucking love the style so much it's so beautiful and whimsical
I forgot about it cos I’m an old almost 27 yr old and it was a long time ago
but I actually had the book and wow I forgot how visually stunning it is
I LOVED this show as a kid. I remember watching it when my brother was a baby. Now that I'm older and I know what it's like to grow up as an older sibling, I realize how the show draws kids in with Lola's funny behavior, and sneakily teaches them how to be gentle older siblings through Charlie. (also I fully also thought Marv and Lotta were siblings! I think it was because they all walked home together as a group)
26:50 my childhood is revived and i shed a single tear
I gasped when you showed the butterfly cut out game! The memories of me and my little brother playing that game on the Charlie and Lola website came back to me! (We watched it in India on Cbeebies, that was my favourite channel back then!) My, this was a great video!
This was one of my favorite shows as a kid! Lauren seems so sweet and passionate about her work. Really loved this video!!
This is lovely, I remember watching the tv series with the Swedish dub as a kid. I also remember being kind of annoyed that things were not colored in properly haha.
I remember getting one of the Clarice bean books as a Christmas gift and absolutely loving it, then reading the Charlie and Lola books in school and loving them. When I had kids I discovered the cartoon existed and fell in love with it all over again. Such a beautiful show
I NEVER comment on TH-cam videos but I just had to say that this was absolutely brilliant and I am so glad it exists. I’ve loved this show ever since I was a precocious little girl and will proudly admit that I watch it to this day, and yet I had no idea about the creation process and all of the wonderful little details like the personalised Soren shirt!! Thank you so so much for this video, I didn’t know how much I needed it!
You unlocked a DEEP memory with the butterfly design and cutting out game! You are correct it was on Cbeebies and I rinsed it as a child. I remember always saving PDFs of them onto my parents desktop that they had to go through them with me and told me I could only keep three and I cried every time they deleted one! Thank you for reminding me of this gem of a series!
I went to one of the Charlie and Lola theatre productions when I was younger! I could have sworn it was Charlie and Lola's Best Bestest Play, but it was most likely Charlie and Lola's Extremely New Play, since I remember being around 3 or 4, and I turned 4 in 2012. My twin sister and I still have t-shirts from the theatre show somewhere in our house, which are basically the only things that made me remember ever actually seeing the production.
14:46 here me out Clarice’s parents
I am so glad they worked alongside the creator to make the show really match her style, I love the paper craft look!
such a blast from the past with this one! i loved the charlie and lola show and read a few of the books too. my family had the dvds of a bunch of the episodes and me and my brother would watch them a lot. also read the clarice bean books and the first three ruby redfort books when they first came out (had to get them internationally). an icon, truly
I LOVEEED Charlie and Lola when I was a kid!!! But I only found out they where british like LAST YEAR 😭😭 I’m mexican and i watched it dubbed into latin american spanish on cds so I always assumed they were american 😭😭
Your videos always just light up my days. It truly seems as though we had the same childhood in different fonts.
Here in Mexico the show was really popular and me n my sisters loved it, we had this dvd and I vividly remember an episode where Lola goes to a sleepover with her friend but forgets her suitcase and they imagine the things she doesn’t have like a wand n stuff, also when she realizes she forgot her suitcase she was about to eat mashed potatoes and it flies from her spoon, like THE DETAILS 😭🩷
I'm 23 and still adore Charlie and Lola. I named my cats Charlie and Lola.
The nostalgic pictures. I can hear Charlie's voice in my head. This is adorable!
I remember watching this with my brother. I always loved big bro little sis shows because I could always relate to both characters.
this was my childhood! my siblings got so bored of it but i loved it ! :)
Nahh the way I remember all those episodes so vividly is CRAZYY I’m getting hit REAL HARD by nostalgia I CANTT I’m crying 😭😭😭😭
I loved playing the butterfly charlie and lola game on cbeebies
Every single episode you mentioned brought back looong forgotten memories, I used to love this show so much as a kid
I now learned that the same author for Ruby Redfort also did Charlie and Lola. I was always wondering why ruby kept getting referenced
😮
Charlie and Lola was my favourite show as a kid! I'd always ask my mum for strawberry milk (pink milk) when I watched it
Lauren child is one of my favourite authors and artists of all time! her paper collage style really inspired me and is just so fun, i’m surprised there isn’t more children shows like charlie and lola.
I really loved this video! I never knew about Lauren Child's career aside from Charlie and Lola. She seems like a really cool and inspirational lady! I also really liked your Angelina Ballerina video as I grew up with both of these. Would you ever consider deep diving other UK based children's media from the 2000s such as Kipper the dog? I think it's awesome to look into the creation side of these childhood books that I never even knew about!