A product of 90s children’s television in the UK, the “Treacle People” weren’t a household name outside of England, Scotland and Wales. While arguably not as popular as the Muppets or other Jim Henson properties, the method of creating an episode was a dying mode of animation. Now, roughly 30 years later, the “Treacle People” are once again playing with the old and making it fresh.

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🎶Digital Killed the Stop-Motion Style

By the time computers was becoming more widespread across the film and television industry, stop-motion animation was a dying art, having between one to three big features per decade. Classics like “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Wallace and Gromit,” and “Chicken Run” were the last three stop-motion feature films for almost a decade before “Coraline” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox” released in 2009. There may have been small indie films still using this animation style, but ever since those last two releases, the number of recognizable titles are slim pickings from the 2010s onwards

Originally broadcasted in the UK in stop-motion animation, the “Treacle People” were basically a combination of Keebler Elves and Smurfs. For those who aren’t aware of the word, “treacle” is what’s used in syrups after sugar refinement process. The North American equivalent is molasses, which can be made into baked goods similar to Gingerbread cookies. You really don’t need to be an expert in treacle economics. That’s something kids “love” to learn about in their free time, he said sarcastically.

The New Adventures of the Treacle People

Producer — Joseph Russell — not only revived the show, but changed the medium to something more suitable for adults than children. We’re seeing this happening more and more as audio stories become more mainstream. If you tell the same story in multiple ways, you can diversify your income without much upfront cost. A story going from a visual to an audio medium generally won’t work as well as going the other way.

As technology evolves and replaces the old, the question of which was more impactful overall becomes something people dwell on during the tail-end of a technologies life cycle. Nowhere is the more apparent than audio. From 8-track cassette tapes to the digital downloads in a lossless format, music hasn’t died, despite what the song “Video Killed the Radio Star” might imply. This audio continuation of the “Treacle People” pokes fun at budgetary considerations common in a movie or television set, like beautiful set design and fancy camerawork. Obviously this is something audio dramas don’t need to consider as the imagination fills in the blanks.

While computer graphics made stop-motion animation obsolete, audio dramas have seen and are continuing to see an increase in popularity in the media landscape as a whole. It’s not at the level of Hollywood where you’re more likely to know about a movie coming out than another medium, but A-list movie stars have been showing up in fiction podcasts more frequently as the medium has evolved from the golden age of radio.

A Trickle of Continuation with a Dash of Reboot

The first episode called “Treacle Down Economics” sets up the story as both a continuation of the original TV show and its spiritual successor. Adults who grew up with the show seem to be the target audience, but the performances feel more at home in a PBS program. You can have both, and the balance is almost equal parts for adults and children. Unfortunately, it’s like a forest made up of different-looking flora, with each one vastly different than the one next to it. The result may be pretty to look at, but the mishmash of colors don’t lend itself well to the aesthetic as a whole.

The spiritual successor element comes from the first episode and before the inciting incident for the audio drama. The mine is on the verge of shutting down until someone accidentally finds a mysterious message in a bottle. This ties up the first joke of the series, which I interpreted as a “Dora the Explorer” or “Blues Clues” moment for adults.

The joke is the engineer of the group talks about the impossibility of opening the letter inside a glass bottle because the dimensions of the paper and the top of the bottle are … you get the idea. The punchline is, of course, to smash the glass and read the note. A note serving as the inciting incident, a call to adventure, the beginning of a story after (most) main characters are introduced. When the humor works, it works well. There were maybe a handful of moments where I laughed out loud. One of note was the duck bill joke in the chapter titled “Moby Duck.”

A Treacle of Background People Information

Ending on a bitter sweet note, one of the show runners for the original series passed away. The producer’s name was Iain Russell. His son—Joseph—put together this passion project in memory of his father. It’s available on audible* and stars much of the original cast returning to their respective roles.

Rating: High Internally Consistent (8.5±/10 Stars)

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