Contexts

Abstract

There are three discursive contexts in which children’s stop-frame television should be situated. First is the critical, scholarly context within which the programmes addressed in this book can be positioned. Virtually absent from discussions of British television history generally, children’s television in particular and even from Animation Studies, this chapter repositions stop-frame television in a longer history of British practice stretching from the earliest days of cinema to the success of Aardman Animations. Second, the industrial context within which the programmes were produced is sketched via archival research which establishes an environment of collaboration and negotiation between the BBC and independent producers of animation. Finally, the counter-cultural mood of the 1960s forms a significant backdrop against which these programmes negotiated social change.