Tales of the Riverbank

Tales of the Riverbank
Hammy the Hamster and G.P. the Guinea Pig during the episode "Hammy the Flying Postman"
Also known as	Hammy Hamster Once Upon a Hamster
Genre	Children's television
Created by	Dave Ellison Paul Sutherland
Written by	Dave Ellison Charles Fullman Paul Sutherland Cliff Braggins
Presented by	Peggy Miller
Voices of	Paul Sutherland (Canada) Johnny Morris (UK)
Opening theme	Raccolta, op. 43, no. 6: Andante in C by Mauro Giuliani
Country of origin	United Kingdom Canada
Original language	English
No. of series	5
No. of episodes	143 First: 13 Second: 39 Hammy Hamster: 26 HBO/C4: 65
Production
Producers	Dave Ellison Paul Sutherland
Cinematography	Josef Seckeresh
Production companies	Riverbank Productions (1960–1963) Working Title Television (1991–1992) Delroy (1991–1992) Hammytime Productions (1995–1998)
Original release
Network	BBC (1960) ITV (Hammy Hamster) (1972) Channel 4 (1991–1998) YTV (Canada, 1995–1998)
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)

Tales of the Riverbank, sometimes called Hammy Hamster and Once Upon a Hamster for the Canadian version, is a British children's television series developed from a Canadian pilot. The original series was later broadcast on Canadian and U.S. television, dubbed by Canadian and US actors for the markets they were to be broadcast in.

The pilot was created by David Ellison and Paul Sutherland, CBC film editors, in 1959. After completing the pilot programme, CBC turned down the production and so Dave Ellison travelled to the BBC in London to show it.^[1] The BBC initially commissioned thirteen episodes, but extended this later. A second series was made in colour in the 1970s, narrated by Johnny Morris.