Hoopla_Doopla!
Hoopla Doopla!
Australian TV series or program
Hoopla Doopla! (stylised: all lower case) is a joint Australian-Chinese live-action non-verbal children's TV series, which was first broadcast from February 2014.[1][2] It was created by Melinda Wearne and Ron Saunders using cast and production teams from both countries.[1][3] It was co-directed by Mark Barnard and Liang Tong.[1] The series was filmed during six months up to late 2013, using a 2250 square metre studio,[2] "about the size of a football field" containing the fictional town of Hoopla.[4] Producers were Wearne (of The Content Agency) and Saunders (Beyond Screen Production) for Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and Zhao Qian (China Television Drama Production Centre (Zhong yang dian shi tai)) for China Central Television (CCTV).[1][4][5]
The studio was located outside the Chinese city of Zhuozhou – two hours south-west of Beijing.[4][5] Post-production occurred in Australia.[1][4][5] Hoopla Doopla! targets children from the age of three to seven.[6] Its on-screen cast of six characters are Jango (Daniel Gorski), Mimi (Kate Wright), Zap (Simon Wright), Bop (Zie Ning), Squidgie (Liu Wanting) and Ziggy (Zhang Haoran). They are augmented by an off-screen Narrator (Zindzi Okenyo).[4] It began broadcast by ABC from 10 February 2014[2] and by CCTV from mid-February, for 52 episodes of 12 minutes each.[1][5]