After School

Brace yourself, dear reader. If you have even the vaguest memories of The Animals of Farthing Wood, I am about to dredge up a whole lot of trauma for you, because it turns out this show was nothing more than a violent bloodbath masquerading as the wholesome adventures of some woodland creatures. Strap. In.

The Animals of Farthing Wood is a British-French animated series that was produced and aired on Australian TV in the mid-late ’90s. It was based on a series of children’s books written between 1979 – 1994 by English author Colin Dann. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find much information about Colin Dann, which is a shame because I have a lot of questions for him, such as WHO HURT YOU?! The reason for this will become apparent all too soon. 

I was a huge fan of this show as a kid. I remember it felt epic, because unlike other shows where everything was back to normal at the end of each episode, the plot of The Animals of Farthing Wood spanned across three seasons. So when I recently embarked on re-watch of the first season, I wondered if it would still feel like the high-stakes epic that I remembered it to be.

I didn’t have to wait long to find out, because this show does not waste time. Within seconds of the opening titles in the first episode, we’re hit with scenes of Farthing Wood being destroyed, accompanied by dramatic music and the sound of chainsaws. Shit starts real, and it only gets more real from there. 

It turns out that Farthing Wood is being paved over the make way for some sort of construction project. Within three minutes of the first episode, the animals of the wood come together for a community meeting in which they decide they must leave their home and journey to a safer place – a wildlife reserve called White Deer Park. Fox (who is, shockingly, a fox), is elected leader and the group is guided by Toad (who is a toad…you can bet the show will come to regret this naming convention in the later seasons), who knows the way to White Deer Park. The group also consists of Badger, Owl, an obnoxious weasel, several anxious rabbits, newts, field mice, hedgehogs, a ‘married’ pheasant couple, some voles and an adder. In order for the predator and prey animals to travel safely together, they agree to put aside their differences, and come up with The Oath of Mutual Protection: a promise not to frighten, terrorise or consume one another on their journey. There are some nice lessons in there for the kiddies about the environment, mutual respect and working together. So far, so good, right?

WRONG!

It turns out woodland animals are flagrantly sexist. Who knew?

No time for pheasant-tries

I was actually shocked by the sexism in the first few episodes. Multiple characters mutter snide things about ‘women’ and ‘females’, including Badger who is otherwise portrayed as being wise and kind. But the worst offender is Mr Pheasant. Paranoid about being shot (which I suppose is fair enough if you’re a pheasant), he takes his anxieties out on this downtrodden wife. He makes a quip about how long women take to get ready and at one point he literally yells “stupid female!” at her. Which begs the question – was the 1990s always this aggressively sexist and I was too young to notice? Or was this blatant sexism present in Dann’s original novels, meaning somebody made a conscious choice to include it in the TV adaptation? Either way, we needn’t worry too much about the damaging effects of Mr Pheasant’s attitudes. He’ll be dead soon!

Won’t somebody please think of the children?!

Much has been written about the death and brutality in this show (see this Twitter thread for a quick summary of the deaths and violent encounters). I was going to make a witty joke about how The Animals of Farthing Wood is basically Game of Thrones for children, but it turns out that joke has already been made quite spectacularly in this mashup video:

Of course death is a natural occurrence, particularly amongst wild animals, but you have to hand it to The Animals of Farthing Wood. The show really goes out of its way to make every death as emotionally traumatic as possible. Here are some of the highlights:

• The family of newts decide to leave the group and make their home in a nice pond they’ve encountered on the journey. Half an episode later, they perish in a fire.
• A baby rabbit is shot in front of its sobbing mother.
• The two hedgehogs panic and freeze up while crossing a highway and are both crushed by oncoming traffic while the rest of the animals watch on.
• Mrs Pheasant is shot by a farmer. Mr Pheasant sees her PLUCKED, COOKED, HEADLESS BODY ON THE FARMER’S DINNER TABLE. He is shot seconds later (although, I’m not mad about it. We didn’t need that misogynist in our lives).

In a scene that George R.R. Martin would be proud of, just after one of the field mice has given birth to a litter of baby mice, a butcherbird comes along and impales the babies on a thorn bush (which is apparently something that butcherbirds do). Their mother watches on, wailing in anguish. There is a lot of cartoon blood, and I feel it’s pertinent to point out that none of this does anything to forward the plot. I can honestly say without a hint of a joke that this scene has haunted me ever since I first saw it. 

These are just the deaths that occur within the first season. There are 24 deaths in the show’s 39 episodes, and if you want a refresher, someone has kindly made a YouTube compilation of all the deaths. It runs for a full six minutes:

Wait, but why tho?

At this point, I feel we have to ask why the show creators would choose to traumatise a generation of children in this way? I’m sure it was all in the name of teaching us about the brutality of nature and life and death, but isn’t that why we have pet goldfish as kids? 

On the plus side, the show carries some strong environmental messages. There’s a conversation in the very first episode about the way the humans are recklessly demolishing the forest that would be too on the nose if it was written now, but if we’d made the baby boomers watch it in the 90s, maybe we wouldn’t be facing the climate crisis we’re dealing with today.

I only managed to re-watch season one, but I am keen to watch the next two seasons, if only to see if all the death and destruction had a greater purpose in the overall storyline (and frankly, to see if any of the original characters survive). If my memory serves me, there are issues of hierarchy, power and even race explored in the following seasons (I recall a Romeo and Juliet-esq forbidden romance between one of Fox’s cubs and the cub of a rival pack of blue foxes). And loads more death, of course. 

I’d love to hear about your experience with this show, readers. Were you terrified or compelled by it? Do you feel like it taught you about friendship and the environment, or is it possibly the most pointless and upsetting thing ever animated? And most importantly, will you join my support group for Farthing Wood fans? We meet Wednesdays at 7pm.