Bill and Ben (TV series)
British children's television series

Bill and Ben is a British stop-motion animated television series produced by Cosgrove Hall Films for BBC Worldwide. It is a remake of the 1952 TV series Flower Pot Men aimed at young children. Production began in 2000, and it aired for two series between 4 January 2001 and 10 December 2002.
Broadcast
On January 4, 2001, a new series in colour named Bill and Ben began on Children's BBC on BBC One, this time involving stop-motion animation, 35mm film style and full colour, and made by Cosgrove Hall Films with a team of ten animators. This show features the voices of John Thomson (who also serves as the narrator), Jimmy Hibbert, and Eve Karpf. The TV series aired in the Republic of Ireland on RTÉjr and formerly aired on CBeebies from February 11, 2002 to the afternoon of August 29, 2008.
Difference between versions
Many additions were implemented:
A mean female rosebush with two talking buds in the neighbour's garden named Rose.
A mischievous female prickly plant named Thistle.
A female magpie named Pry, obsessed by shiny treasure, often just every bottle cap.
A male hedgehog named Boo.
The public source identifies “Bill and Ben (TV series)” as british children's television series. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bill, series and British.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q117040502. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1952, 2000, 2001 and 2002.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bill and Ben (TV series)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.