Construction Site (TV series)

Construction Site is a live action children's television series created by The Jim Henson Company in 1999, featuring a group of seven anthropomorphic construction vehicles. It was originally produced for and shown on CITV starting on September 10, 1999. In March 9, 2002, it was nominated for a Children's BAFTA for the Best Pre-School Live Action. Two 13-episode seasons were produced. Episodes are packaged as 52 x 10’ or 13 x 26’. The show is similar in concept to Thomas & Friends and Bob the Builder, albeit without any human characters and in a more realistic, less toylike visual style. The show had a range of video releases by Universal Australia.

The characters
The main characters consist of a range of different construction equipment. They are as follows:


 * Diggs is a male blue Backhoe loader
 * Bozer is a male red Bulldozer
 * Scooch is a male orange Dumper
 * Carrie is a female purple Forklift
 * Carl is a male green Crane
 * Lug is a male yellow Dump truck
 * Maxine is a female brown Cement Mixer

There were also mentioned/visiting characters:
 * Flatty the Flatbed
 * Skatch the Dumper
 * Big Rig the Large Dump truck
 * Dumper the Jumper Truck
 * Big Rig the "Supertruck"
 * Kevin the Crane
 * Truckzilla the Monster Truck

There are also other vehicles and machines:
 * The Low Loader
 * The Tall Crane
 * The Conveyor Belt
 * The Wrecking Ball Crane

Season 1 (1999)

 * 1) "Who's the Boss" – Carrie thinks she'd make just as good a boss as Bozer and when he gives her the chance she's determined to prove it.
 * 2) "Cool Fuel" – The machines must clear an old dumpsite to make way for a new car park in just one day.
 * 3) "What I Do Best" – When Diggs starts treating everyday jobs on the construction site as a competition, Bozer decides to introduce a real contest—the Machine Challenge
 * 4) "Carnival Capers" – On Maxine's mileage day, Bozer enlists the help of the others to organize a party to celebrate.
 * 5) "Big Bozer Is Watching" – Scooch is terrified to work on top of a tall building after spilling salt earlier in the day, as he believes it's bad luck.
 * 6) "Big Rig" – Lug scoffs when he sees the new machines pretending to be a superhero named Big Rig, but he might need some of those powers.
 * 7) "Listening Troubles" – When Bozer tells Diggs that he's full of good ideas he thinks he'll share them with Scooch and Carrie—but Carrie has her own ideas, and they bicker.
 * 8) "The Way of the Bodger" – Diggs learns the merits of doing a job properly after he does mediocre work to save time.
 * 9) "Look What I've Got" – Diggs is proud of his shiny new attachment. But when Bozer tells him it's needed on an important job, Diggs realizes that he doesn't know what it does.
 * 10) "Tread Carefully" – Diggs wears some new, fashionable treads, but his quest for fashion leaves Scooch in a tight spot.
 * 11) "A Good Mixer" – The new machines have a lot of bricks to move, so many in fact that Diggs thinks they could use a little help from Maxine.
 * 12) "Almost Famous" – When Diggs, Carrie and Scooch dig a trench in the wrong place they think they've struck oil and dream of riches.
 * 13) "Sunk" – When the younger machines accidentally knock a load of oil drums into the dock they are too scared to own up to their mistake.

Season 2 (2000)

 * 1) "What's the Plan" – Diggs and Scooch thing they're saving Bozer some time by digging a pond, but they put it in the wrong place.
 * 2) "Idle Time" – When there's cement mix to be moved and Carrie's feeling fired up, nothing can stop her—nothing except a dead battery that is.
 * 3) "A Riveting Story" – Carrie chooses to horse around when the machines are clearing out an old dock, and has to be rescued by Carl.
 * 4) "There's No Place Like Home" – Preoccupied because he misses his birth site, Carl almost drops a pipe on Diggs, leading the others to try and cheer him up.
 * 5) "Truckmate" – Diggs is jealous when Scooch chooses to work with Carrie instead of him, so Diggs impersonates Carrie to win back his friend.
 * 6) "Grown Up for a Day" – When Diggs saves Carl from a nasty accident, the older machines decide it's time he started hanging out with them.
 * 7) "Mid-Mileage Crisis" – After reflecting on his carefree youth, Lug decides that he's not ready for old age and joins Diggs and Scooch for some 'top gear' fun.
 * 8) "Loud and Clear" – Scooch's voice is too quiet to stop Lug from crashing, and Scooch worries that the older truck will never forgive him.
 * 9) "Junkyard" – Diggs frightens Carrie and Schooch on a junkyard run with tales of a scary monster named "Truckzilla."
 * 10) "From Start to Finish" – Diggs, Carrie and Scooch are tired of the old machines always telling them what to do, and want to prove to Bozer they can work on their own
 * 11) "Out with the Old" –  Bozer tells the machines that it's "out with the old and in with the new," to Carl and Lug's chagrin.
 * 12) "Feeling Flat" – Scooch wants to find something he can do that Diggs can't. But when he tries to max out his load all he ends up with is a flat tire.
 * 13) "One Roll at the Time" – Diggs discovers Bozer is scared of water, but in an effort to help Bozer conquer his fear, Diggs ends up in trouble.

Season 3 (2001)

 * 1) "Carrie's Pallets" – Jealous when the bigger machines get to landscape a new park, Carrie decides to invent her own forklifting style.
 * 2) "Carl Wash" – Carl's inventions are legendary...for being a disaster. And when he unveils his new Carl Wash, the young machines are his test dummies.
 * 3) "One Little Word" – Bozer gives Scooch the morning off so he'll be rested for a big job in the afternoon, but the other machines ask for his help and he doesn't get much rest.
 * 4) "Testing Behaviour" – It's time for the CCT (Construction Certificate Test) and Carrie's convinced she won't pass.
 * 5) "Bozer's Boo Boo" – When Diggs discovers that Bozer has accidentally dozed a load of gravel over some important bridge roads he faces a dilemma.
 * 6) "Don't Panic" – Bozer goes off site and leaves Carl in charge—which always leads to total chaos. So Maxine steps in to help.
 * 7) "Every Dumper's Dream" – When Lug tells Scooch that grading a road on your own is what every dumper dreams of, the little truck decides to do a bit of solo grading.
 * 8) "If Trucks Could Fly" – When a daredevil dump truck comes to town, Scooch is thrilled to find out that Lug used to be one himself.
 * 9) "I'm Having Fun Today" – Carrie teaches Diggs that even his boring job of moving stones can be fun when she turns it into a game.
 * 10) "Days of Blunder" – A site scattered with materials inspires Diggs to turn it into an obstacle course, and Scooch wonders if he's up to the challenge.
 * 11) "Mine All Mine" – Diggs, Scooch and Carrie gets themselves trapped in a collapsed mine.
 * 12) "Safe and Sound" – Working in the snowy mountains, Diggs chooses to engage in some dangerous thrills rather than put safety first.
 * 13) "Silencers Are Golden" – When Carl and Lug have a falling out, Diggs can't help but try to bring them back together.

Season 4 (2002)

 * 1) "The Call of the Forest" – Despite Bozer's warnings; Diggs plays a prank on Scooch, encouraging him to pursue the mysterious "the call of the forest.
 * 2) "Space Invaders" – Scooch would like a bit more space in the idle house but Diggs and Carrie aren't giving an inch.
 * 3) "Star Truck" – When the young machines decide to tell stories, Scooch shows that sometimes the smallest truck has the biggest imagination.
 * 4) "Going Solo" – With Bozer off-site, Diggs mistakenly thinks Maxine has told him it's OK to do a job on his own.
 * 5) "Magno Carrie" – Carrie doesn't understand how to work her flashy new recharger—so Diggs takes charge, despite the fact he has no idea what he's doing.
 * 6) "Crane of the Year" – Carl has to knock a chimney down on the site today, giving him a chance to show why he is nominated for Crane of the Year.
 * 7) "Parp Idle!" – Due to a wall of ice that Carl can't even shift, the machines get stuck on a slippery mountain road.
 * 8) "Building Bozer" – When Diggs overhears Bozer talking to himself, it seems that their beloved boss is going to be leaving.
 * 9) "Whodunnit" – The machines are shocked to find that during the night the new multistory parking garage they were building has been destroyed.
 * 10) "Emission Impossible" – A new dump truck has come to the site—Skatch. He's so exciting and fun that Diggs and Carrie seem to be ignoring their old pal, Scooch.
 * 11) "Hi Pitched Bozer" – Bozer returns from a servicing only to find that his deep voice has changed and is now high and squeaky.
 * 12) "Frozen Bozer" – On a cold day, Bozer reminds the machines to put in their antifreeze. Trouble is, he's so busy reminding everyone else that he forgets to put some in himself.
 * 13) "Fog" – The young machines procrastinate on a job, and pay the price when a thick fog rolls in.

Setting
The series was set around a large construction site, and the machines are rarely seen leaving its boundaries. There were no human characters due to the use of Muppet-like vehicles. The site consists of factories, a battery charge bay, a park, a dock, a few sheds, a tall bridge, a scrapyard, a mountain, a forest, and more.

The models
The vehicle models are used by live-action animatronic puppet models. This is the first time The Jim Henson Company have used these, as these type of puppets were restricted to movies like Babe and Labyrinth.