Art Attack (TV series)

Art Attack is a British children's television series revolving around art hosted by Lloyd Warbey on Disney Junior. The original series was one of CITV's longest running programmes, running from 1990 to 2007, and was presented throughout by Neil Buchanan.

The new series launched on Disney Junior (UK & Ireland) on 6 June 2011 and was presented by Jassa Ahluwalia. Each show involved Ahluwalia voicing-over footage of an artist producing three works of art, taking the viewer through the various stages of production step by step.

The show's latest series is hosted by Lloyd Warbey.

History
The programme was originally a TVS production, devised by two TVS employees, Neil Buchanan and Tim Edmunds. Buchanan and Edmunds met each other at Southern Television in 1978, and worked together on No. 73 and Do It!.

The first Art Attacks were a strand within No. 73, and this segment proved so popular, Nigel Pickard the executive producer of children's programming at TVS green lit the pilot. The Art Attack pilot was shot on location at a disused swimming pool in Gillingham, Kent in 1989, and the series began the following year.

When TVS lost its franchise, Edmunds and Buchanan bought the rights to the show and produced Art Attack through their company, The Media Merchants. The Media Merchants used STV Productions (then known as "SMG Productions"), as the ITV company to get the series on to network. This was partly down to the fact Nigel Pickard moved to Scottish television. The rights to the STV shows have since reverted to the copyright holder.

In 1993 another ex-TVS employee, Peter Urie set up a production management company, Television Support Services. Television Support Services managed all of the Media Merchants productions. The show was filmed from The Maidstone Studios, Maidstone, Kent. In 1998, the series began airing on the Disney Channel. However, the programme still runs on TVO in Canada and has since 1995. Since the programme's demise, many of the production team have transferred to Finger Tips and Mister Maker (both recorded at The Maidstone Studios).

ITV announced the cancellation of the series in July 2007. As of August 2013, the show is still regularly repeated on CITV each year, usually on weekend afternoons.

In 2010, Disney announced a new version of the series would air on Disney Junior in Mexico and the UK. The first series of the new version was presented by Jassa Ahluwalia.

The Head
The Head, was a puppet stone bust who humorously recaps the steps needed to produce the last art piece made. After doing this, he would usually show his creation of the previous art attack, most times however getting it hilariously wrong and usually bursting into tears. However on one occasion, by accidentally doing part of the instructions incorrectly, he creates a similar effect than desired and is proud of his work. He can sometimes tell jokes after the Big Art Attacks.

In series one, 'The Head' was played by Jim Sweeney, in series 2, Andrew O'Connor; and from series 3, having been redesigned as a puppet, he was voiced and operated by Francis Wright. 'The Head' did not appear in series 12 or 13 and from series 17 to 19.

Vincent Van Coconut
In the revived series, The Head was replaced by a talking palm tree called Vincent Van Coconut, voiced by Tim Hibber. His name, Vincent van Coconut is a parody of the famous Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh.

Original series
Note: two episodes aired each week during series 12 and 13. Five episodes each week during series 14.

Revived series
(Source: ITV/Hit Entertainment/BFI/Disney)

Video releases
No DVD releases have been issued, except DVDs that come with Art Attack books and DVDs which come free with newspapers; including an Art Attack episode taken from CITV Favourites VHS (released in 1999).

However, in India, Art Attack was released in three volumes by Disney DVD in 2010. It is unknown whether there are any plans to release the volumes in the UK.

Many Art Attack books were also released by Dorling Kindersley.