Bob the Builder

Bob the Builder is the 2015 reboot revival of the original 1999 TV series of the same name. It has three series and 130 episodes, and originally aired from 1 September 2015 to 30 December 2018.

Production History

Around 2013, the series quietly started development after Mattel's purchase of HiT Entertainment in 2012. The reboot was first announced to the public on April 2014, with a release date of late 2015.

Mainframe Studios (a division of Rainmaker Entertainment) of ReBoot and Transformers: Beast Wars fame were brought on for animation work of the original show. The characters were redesigned and their voices recast to fit with a newer audience, with the intent of emphasizing real construction work. For additional animation for online videos/inbetween shorts, Brown Bag Films would produce these materials.

While recording of the UK dub was still recorded in England, the US dub is now done in Canada, and as a result, several notable Canadian voice actors, including Colin Murdock (Bob), Vincent Tong (Muck), Ian James Corlett (Roley and Mr. Bentley), his daughter Claire Corlett (Dizzy), Richard Newman (Two-Tonne), and Lee Tockar (Tiny), are involved in the series.

The redesigns were then revealed on October 2014, causing controversy from social media. The following month, it was announced the reboot would premiere on the UK on Channel 5's block Milkshake! on 1 September 2015. Later on, the official Bob the Builder US YouTube channel confirmed the show would come to the United States on PBS Kids in November 2015.

After two seasons, the reboot's first and only special, Mega Machines, was released on 27 May 2017. Afterwards, Mainframe's contract would cease and DHX Studios Halifax (a division of DHX Media known for animation on Super Why, the current seasons of Fireman Sam, and the 2015 reboot of Inspector Gadget would take over production for a final third series.

The third and last series ended on 30 December 2018, and with no announcement of a fourth series, it further states that this series had ended.

It is no longer airing on PBS Kids in the United States after November 2018. The third series premiered on Qubo starting 26 August 2019 in the United States as revealed on 13 August, until Qubo shut down around 28 February 2021. Currently, the show remains available on Paramount Plus and Amazon Prime alongside its predecessor.

As of 2025, an untitled Bob the Builder movie starring Anthony Ramos has been announced in development. However, the film is yet to be released but it is unknown whether it takes place in the continuity of the Original Series or in the Reboot Series^[1]. Even though it marks the return to stop-motion with ShadowMachine of Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio providing animation, it is currently unknown if they will use both Paul K. Joyce and Keith Hopwood's background music soundtracks.

Changes and Differences

This series is obviously not canon to the classic, as many fundamental features of the show, such as the characters' personalities, catchphrases, and designs have changed. Furthermore, the voice actors, which had always been the same in the Original Series, Project: Build It and Ready, Steady, Build! in both the original British dub and the American dub, are suddenly different. Some of the characters (e.g. Scoop and Wendy) seem to be younger than their classic counterparts. Additionally, because Muck is now male in both the US and the UK, it creates a discrepancy with the original US canon of the show.

Travis, Bird, Scruffty, Scrambler, Spud, Trix, Skip, Benny, Sumsy, Packer, Flex, Bristle, Dodger, Zoomer, Scratch, Gripper, Grabber, Tumbler, and some other characters that appeared in the Original Series, Project: Build It and Ready, Steady, Build! do not appear in this reboot, further showing that it is non-canon to the original series. The series is set in a big city called Spring City rather than the traditional small village Bobsville as an example. Despite removing old characters, new faces were introduced, such as Leo, Mayor Maria Madison, the Spring City Rockets, Curtis, Vet Tilly, Dash Lightning, Chef Tattie, Jenny Dobbs and new machines, Two-Tonne, Betsy, Alfred, Phillip, Tiny, Stretch, Tread, Shifter, Ace, Crunch, Thud, Norm, Rocky and Picksy.

However, Fixham from the Ready, Steady, Build! series is still featured prominently in the series. In the app, Build City, the classic series' theme tune is played on instrumental. Farmer Pickles and Bob's dad Robert return in the third series episodes, Barn Building Bedlam and Bob's First Build, remaining the characters from the original series to come back after Bob, Wendy, Pilchard, and the original team first appeared in the reboot.

Reception

The series has been subjected to multiple amounts of criticism from fans and television critics (mostly for the fact the simple designs were replaced with 'High Tech' and 'crude' designs). Some examples include these: humans gain eyebrows, have eye colours (Bob and Leo have brown eyes and Wendy has green eyes) and have five fingers on each hand instead of four, and also, female humans gain eyelashes.

When the reboot's designs were first shown around October 2014, a lot of controversy about it was shared around social media.

Some of the original series crew, including Kate Harbour and Curtis Jobling, have expressed their dislike for the series. While the series' creator, Keith Chapman (who also created Nickelodeon's PAW Patrol) hasn't at all expressed any dislike to the reboot, he has admitted that the then newly-announced revamp of the show was a big risk. Chapman has even acknowledged that making changes to a popular series could be controversial, and had experienced this himself as a viewer.

Series Overview

Main Article: List of Reboot Series episodes

Trivia

The first series released in the UK to not feature Neil Morrissey, Rob Rackstraw and Kate Harbour part of the original UK voice cast.
The reboot is the fourth franchise co-production between Mattel and Mainframe Studios, following their previous efforts on the third season of Max Steel's 2001-2002 show and several direct-to-video movies under the Hot Wheels and Barbie franchises.
Despite the reboot not being canon to the original series, episodes from the reboot are being numbered with episodes from the original.
In 30 December 2018, shortly after all the third series episodes aired in the UK, Channel 5 lost the rights to the show, but reruns were later shown on weekends on Channel 5, and were on ITV's Little Be block, until that shut down on May 31st, 2024
Scoop's persona is closer to Digger's one from the pilot episode than his persona from the Original Series. Likewise, Bob's design was more realistically proportioned, much like the pilot episode design, including his five fingers on each hand.