She's five and she snorts a lot, but this children's cartoon character is now a cash sow, outselling Madonna and Lady Gaga. Her live show hits Ireland this week, writes BRIAN BOYD
AT A ROCK festival in the UK last year, as acts such as Orbital and Tinie Tempah went through their paces on stage, rumours began to sweep the crowd that Peppa Pig had been spotted nearby. An exodus from the music stages ensued as a crowd descended on the children’s area, hoping for a handshake or autograph from the most-loved preschool cartoon character of her generation.
Parents who are just recovering their hearing after Justin Bieber’s Irish shows will have to go through it all again when Peppa Pig begins her Irish tour next week. The noise made by Bieber fans has nothing on the nosebleed-inducing shrieks raised by a full house of excitable three-year-olds at a Peppa Pig show.
Everyone wants a piece of Peppa. Last month it was announced that she had become the best-selling Irish and UK pre-school toy of 2010, overtaking the formidable Thomas the Tank Engine for the first time. Peppa pulled in record merchandising sales of €250 million last year, and this year that figure is predicted to hit €1 billion as US children’s networks begin showing her programme.
The benighted British Labour party even turned to Peppa during its election campaign last year. Peppa had been booked to appear alongside government ministers on a visit to a children’s centre to highlight Labour’s “family-friendly” policies. But after some pesky journalists started asking questions about the political neutrality of children’s cartoon figures Peppa gracefully declined the invitation. Gordon Brown, in his last weeks as prime minister, released a statement saying that although he was a “big fan” of Peppa “he understands that she has a very busy schedule and so couldn’t make the appearance”.
With her programme screened in more than 180 countries, and with gross earnings that dwarf those of Madonna and Lady Gaga, Peppa is the most unlikely of superstars. Just five years of age and habitually dressed in a red dress, she enjoys jumping in muddy puddles and snorting with laughter. She lives with her baby brother, George, and parents, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig. If all that sounds very boilerplate, if not cliched, Peppa is in fact a radical TV programme. She came to life in 2004, a time when very few girl characters featured on children’s TV – the field had been dominated by Bob the Builder, Fireman Sam and Postman Pat.
Working against the high-tech advances brought in by Pixar's Toy Storyfilms, Peppa is a clever creation. She's very lo-fi: it's all pastel colours and simply drawn characters. There's a contemporary feel, and touches such as portraying her mother as working from home on a computer mean many children can identify with it. The jokes are never on Peppa but on her not-very-together parents – particularly her father, who comes across as a kindly oaf. The language is clean enough for preschoolers but not so anodyne that it turns parents off. Each frame is shot from a child's perspective: the house where Peppa lives is out on its own at the top of a hill, because studies show that preschool children, even those brought up in terraced houses, will always draw their houses as standing alone.
Peppa came to life on the back of an envelope in a pub 10 years ago. Her creators and owners are three British animators, Neville Astley, Mark Baker and Phil Davis, who met at animation school. They produce Peppa Pigfrom an office on Regent Street in London that they call the Elf Factory. Peppa was written in frustration after the animators had a less-than-satisfactory experience with the BBC over their previous children's show, The Big Knights. Davis claims the BBC showed it in graveyard slots. They kept Peppa away from the BBC, for fear that the broadcaster's commercial arm, BBC Worldwide, would end up owning all the licensed spin-offs and merchandising revenue generated by the character. Instead they brought Peppa to the Nickelodeon children's channel, determined to own the rights to the characters themselves.
Scraping around for funding, they always came up short. “We had to tip the money in ourselves,” Davis has said. “We had to ask friends and families. We didn’t pay ourselves for the first couple of years. It was beans on toast all round. We were a bunch of people who had a common vision about what we were doing, and faith in our ability to connect with an audience. And we just knew that the programme was right. It looked right and it sounded right.”
The first show went out in 2004, and something strange happened during the first series. In one episode Peppa put on a princess costume with wings on it. The trio were quickly approached by merchandising companies that were aware of how popular the show was becoming and thought the time was right to launch a Peppa range. The Peppa Princess dress became a best-seller. It was soon followed by books, garden sets, kitchens and more. There are also console games and an iPhone app.
Later this year Peppa takes the giant leap of having her own theme park, in southern England. The show hopes to break the huge US market this year. As Peppa’s two-week Irish tour kicks off on Wednesday, at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, audiences here will get to experience a form of Beatlemania for preschoolers.
Curriculum vitae
Who is she?Peppa, a loveable five-year-old pig who loves jumping in muddy puddles and generally behaving like a liberated female cartoon hero.
Where to meet herOn the children's television channel Nick Jr, and live on her Irish tour, during which she is visiting Dublin, Wexford, Killarney, Limerick and Castlebar. See peppapiglive.com.
Piggy bankPeppa's estimated worth is soon to be in or around €1 billion.
Pig in a poke?The Peppa Pig Toddler Bed costs €150. Mattress not included.
