Hey Duggee

Hey Duggee is a British pre-school children's animated television series aimed at two to five-year-olds. Created by Grant Orchard, it is produced by Studio AKA, in association with BBC Studios (formerly BBC Worldwide). The show is narrated by Alexander Armstrong.

The programme's characters are talking anthropomorphic animals, with Duggee communicating in woofs. The episodes are based around The Squirrel Club, an activity club for children that Duggee leads. The children – the club's Squirrels – take part in all kinds of activities, have adventures and earn badges for their accomplishments. Each episode shows the Squirrels completing an activity or adventure relating to a badge that they earn at the end of each episode. There is no set formula for every episode, with many referencing or parodying pop culture.

Hey Duggee has four series. It was first shown on 17 December 2014, and officially premiered on 12 January 2015. The BBC and Studio AKA produced a second series in early 2016, with the first episode airing in the United Kingdom on 26 September 2016. A third series was commissioned in October 2017, with the first episode due to be broadcast in Autumn 2018, but was pushed back to 4 March 2019. It aired until September 2021 with a Christmas episode shown in December 2020. The third series received increased acclaim and popularity amongst children and adults alike during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns. It was renewed for a fourth series on 5 September 2022.

On October 13, 2023, it was announced a spinoff series Hey Duggee's Squirrel Club is currently in the works as well as a fifth season of the original series.

Production
The programme is animated using the computer program Flash, with a minimalist style using filled shapes with no outlines, and only effects that Flash is capable of, and only the Duggee character regularly uses gradients. For example, if there is a frog character, then it usually bears the appearance of a plain green triangle.

The production team consists of around 16 in-house animators, with six to eight scriptwriters.

Main

 * Narrator – the narrator of the show.
 * Duggee – a friendly big brown male dog and the leader of the Squirrel club. He cannot speak, he only communicates "woof" and "a-woof". He wears yellow clothing with badges.
 * Betty – a talkative and intelligent purple octopus. She always wears a (usually) pink and yellow band on her head.
 * Norrie – a sweet-natured and curious brown mouse. In "The Breakfast Badge", she says she likes shakshouka for breakfast, and in the "Singing Badge", she also said that a "Japanese plum" is her favourite food. She usually wears a pink long-sleeved dress, a yellow tie and purple shoes.
 * Roly – an enthusiastic, loud and hyperactive grey hippopotamus. He usually wears orange pants and brown shoes.
 * Tag – a gentle, clumsy blue rhinoceros. He usually wears maroon pants and light orange shoes.
 * Happy – a tall, easy-going green crocodile, with a love of water and splashing in puddles. According to the Series 4 episode "Happy's First Day", he didn't like water when he was little. He usually wears teal pants, orange shoes and teal glasses. It is implied that Happy is adopted, as his parents are shown to be Elephants.

Recurring
Sander Jones as:
 * Enid – Duggee's pet cat.
 * The Rabbits – live in the field near the clubhouse and all sound like hippies, apart from one who speaks French.
 * Diesel – an angry bull who often chases Duggee and the Squirrels.
 * Frog

Phillip Warner as:
 * Naughty Monkey – a monkey who loves to cause chaos.
 * King Tiger – local royalty whose favourite entertainment is the "jelly-belly dancers".
 * The Chickens – live in the hen-house and enjoy watching episodes of a Spanish hospital-drama.
 * Ladybird

Grant Orchard as:
 * Naughty Mice – a gang of three trouble-making mice styled like a 1950s biker gang; they usually leave the scene with the phrase "Let's bounce".
 * Whooooo – a shamanistic owl.
 * Mole – a short-sighted animal who has dreams of being a stunt-mole.
 * The Rabbits

Adam Longworth as:
 * Lord Fingal of Skye Castle – a Scottish Terrier with a Scottish accent and a kilt.
 * Tino the Artistic Mouse – a perfectionist mouse whom Roly describes as grumpy.
 * Hedgley – a hedgehog who has an African-American accent.
 * Mr. (John) Crab – a dramatic orange crab, married to a non-speaking crab named Nigel.
 * Eugene – an anxious chipmunk involved in leading various theatrical events.
 * Wilburt the Delivery Chipmunk – a postman who has difficulty pronouncing names.
 * Thora and Agnes, the two old deer.
 * Penguins
 * Sgt. Ant

Lucy Montgomery as:
 * Hennie – a tall, sports-loving ostrich.
 * Chew Chew the Panda – a confectionery-loving panda and wife of King Tiger.
 * Fox

Morgana Robinson as: Masami Eagar as:
 * Katarina the Flamingo – the Slavic lead swimmer of a synchronised swimming team.
 * Buggee – a small insect who feels useless due to her small size until the Squirrels show her otherwise.
 * Peggee – a wildebeest who leads the Hummingbirds Club.


 * Hatsu, the Japanese Pottery Poodle

Anelisa Lamola as:


 * Mrs. Weaver

Tim Digby-Bell as:


 * Mr. (Nigel) Crab – Mr. Crab's husband.

Other characters

 * The Hummingbirds – The other group of older animals in the episode The Making Friends Badge, with their very own version of Duggee. They are:
 * Finbar (10 years old) (voiced by Charley Orchard in "The Making Friends Badge" and Ferris Hicks-Little-Jones in "The Same Badge")
 * Merry (10 years old) (voiced by Charley Orchard in "The Making Friends Badge" and Avalon McNamara in "The Same Badge")
 * Chad (9 years old) (voiced by Bastian Varrall in "The Making Friends Badge" and Bram Hicks-Little-Jones in "The Same Badge")
 * Rochelle (11 years old) (voiced by Poppy Green in "The Making Friends Badge" and Mio Eagar in "The Same Badge")
 * Ottie (12 years old) (voiced by Sean Orchard in "The Making Friends Badge" and Magdalena Beardsmore in "The Same Badge")
 * Duglee – Duggee's little nephew, voiced by Poppy Green and Charley Orchard.
 * Ethel
 * Caterpillar

Merchandise and licensing deals
In the UK, the BBC Children's Books imprint published books based on the series.

Golden Bear Toys manufactures Hey Duggee toys sold in the UK.

In 2015, Hey Duggee was adapted into several videogame apps for mobile devices. These include:
 * The Big Badge App
 * The Big Outdoors App
 * We Love Animals
 * Colouring
 * Jigsaw Puzzles
 * The Counting Badge
 * The Exploring App
 * The Squirrels Club
 * The Christmas Badge

As of May 2015, Jasnor holds the master toy licence in Australia and New Zealand.

"The Stick Song"
"The Stick Song" premiered in the series 2 episode, Hey Duggee: The Stick Badge, which was first broadcast in the UK on 7 December 2017. Duggee and the Squirrels are making a campfire when Roly discovers one of his sticks can talk. The stick turns out to be a stick insect, and starts singing "stick" repeatedly to a catchy dance tune.

As of 2020, the song has been viewed over 7 million times on YouTube. The track has been featured on BBC Radio 6 Music and BBC Two's Newsnight. Many remixes have been produced, by both the BBC and others, including a heavy metal remix by children's heavy metal band Slay Duggee.

Reception
Stuart Heritage, writing in The Guardian, described the series as being "peerless."

On Twitter, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) in Greenwich complained about "The Dressing-Up Badge". In the episode, Roly dresses up as a firefighter, but is described as being a fireman, which Greenwich LFB described as being outdated whereas the term firefighter is "the preferred respectful, inclusive, non-sexist, non-gendered term that should be being widely used by all media but especially the BBC".