The Green Forest was a show on TVO when I was a kid. It came on soon after dinner, around 7pm. It was a 30-minute animated kids show about these rabbits, mice, birds and I think there was a fox in it. They all lived in The Green Forest, and had adventures.
I recall there were some main characters in the show, and I think they were the rabbits. There was a male and female rabbit and most of my memories of the show are of the female rabbit running to the male rabbit for help. Sometimes the female rabbit got in trouble and was saved by the male rabbit. Sometimes the male rabbit got in over his head and the female rabbit had to go get more male animals to help. I never thought of the show as sexist when I was a kid, but it seems like that now.
I think the fox was a bad guy. At least that's the spin the creators of the show put on it. The fox would try to eat the mice I think, and therefore he was evil. I don't remember if he ever got one, but I doubt it. The creators must really have disliked foxes to display them as both evil for acting on their natural instinct to consume mice, and then portraying them as inept for doing so consistently unsuccessfully.
And there were birds in the show too, who stereotypically were always the ones who flew up high and spotted the danger. I say "stereotypically" because isn't that the role of every bird in every television show?
The animation was done so that the language of the show could be changed (since it was probably shown in French and English in Canada). Therefore, all the creatures spoke with that round hole of a mouth that would just open and close in a random pattern. The speech always seemed a bit hurried, as if the animators hadn't made the mouth move for long enough. This was typical of anime-style cartoons that were imported from asia and dubbed.
The Green Forest represents a happy place in my mind. It's calming to think about the theme song when stressed:
The Green Forest.
The Green Forest.
It's the Stories you're read about,
all come to life.
It's the Stories you're read about,
all... come... to... life!
Update, Feb 15, 2007
The full theme song lyrics:
(A gunshot is heard, Sammy Bluejay shouts "Trouble! Trouble!", theme song fades in)
...gatting about,
Buster Bear, pursuing trout,
Reddy Fox's radar snout
has sniffed out his prey!
In the green forest,
the green forest,
the laughing brook chuckles all day.
Paddy beaver's building a dam,
Joe the otter tells him "Scram!"
Chatter's upon the lam,
oh what a site!
In the green forest,
the green forest,
you may see an occasional fight.
Peter Rabbit hippity-hop,
The mean old weasel growls.
Grandpa frog, he flippity flops,
and Sammy Blue-jay scowls.
There are martens, mink and sable, bear,
toadstool mushroom tables there,
four and fifty fables there.
Friendship and strife!
In the green forest,
the green forest,
the stories you've read about all come to life,
Yes, the stories you've read about all come to life.
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