"I don't want any of your weakening, second-rate,
     everyday spells. I want a Doomsday Special, and
     I want it now!"
 

    It's Christmas in Wheelieworld, and there's much anticipation in the air, because
    the Wheelies are getting ready for their Annual Yuletide Latin American Fancy
    Dress Ball. Pablo Perdito the World Champion Latin American Dancing Duck
    has dropped by to help with the dance practice and all the Wheelies are in
    their fancy costumes, dancing the Paso Doble. Chorlton, too, is trying his
    very best to keep up. But he's not very good.

   "Chorlton wasn't a very good dancer, and he wasn't too
    clever at differential calculus, or thermal dynamics, or
    tying his own shoelaces..."

    Bless 'im. At least he still spreads his happiness around Wheelieworld.
    But that happiness gets right up the spout of the Kettle Witch, Fenella. In a
    fit of pique she urges her talking spell book, ClapTrap Von SpilldaBeans to
    conjure forth a sinister Doomsday spell. And before you can blink, a crystal
    orb appears amidst the Wheelies. This shimmering, shining illumination
    swathes them in a cosseting fog and draws every last Wheelie, duck and
    dragon away to an icy world...

    "The Wheelies gazed around them in wonder because,
     although they hadn't walked far in the fog, they didn't
     seem to be in Wheelieworld at all..."
    
    "Chorlton and the Wheelies" was already a hit series for thames Television
    when this Christmas Special was commissioned. The half-hour film takes
    us to the caverns of the Snow King and his sinister Snowmen. And as
    Chorlton plays Hide'n'Seek with the orb, Fenella finds herself doomed by
    her own spell. The poor witch is frozen solid,  all alone in Wheelieworld!

    But the gloom is only temporary, for Chorlton is a Happiness Dragon after
    all. When in doubt, he tells a joke or two. And Snow King's are confounded
    by such simple pleasures. Chorlton's japes melt the King's evil down - literally.
    The icy chap simply shrinks before their eyes, the Doomsday Spell is undone
    and before you can say "Ecky thump!" everyone is back in Wheelieworld
    dancing the Paso Doble again, in time for Christmas.

       

    Chorlton and his Wheelie friends come from the land before "Pre-school", when
    series were made simply because they could be. There's no message here,
    and no educational context, apart from the implication that happiness is
    best and that we should all keep chortling. Because that's what Chorlton
    makes us do. From his big grinning face comes a neverending stream
    of idiocy. Here in this extended episode, he refers to the crystal orb as
    being a Blackpool Illumination. To the Snow king, he asks: "Do you do
   Working Men's Clubs?" And come the climax, he's dancing around
    Wheelieworld in a pink tutu. The plot is wafer-thin, but the pleasures
    are as thick and fulsome as that spotty dragon. "Wheelie" great, in fact...

    » Have we heard Fenella's full-name before? Well it's repeated here,
       as our friendly narrator talks about "Fenella Fellorick", the Kettle Witch
       of Spout Hall just over the border between Wheelieworld and the Sadlands.

    » Apparently, Fenella's one-eyed telescope Riley was stolen from the
        end of Doomlaira pier

    » The Snow King, we're told, has a voice like the North Wind, cold and
        terrible. So terrible in fact, that Chorlton sees the fear in the eyes of his
        pals which begins to give him doubts of his own. His own tail starts
        to freeze... until the chortles come back and the King is confounded.

 

    Fenella's
    Doomsday Special

    You're supposed to have a Witch's Dilpoma to cast Doomsday Spells. And you're
    supposed to be a Queen Witch. Fenella hasn't the former and isn't the latter, but
    she presses on undeterred, even though the sky crackles with thunder and
    lightning at the very mention of these spells.

    On Fenella's command, Claptrapp flips through to the very secret pages at the
    the back of his book. Everything goes very still and very dark, as if the sun
    itself is afraid of what might happen. Then that old Kettle Witch takes a deep
    breathe and begins:

 

     On the web


     Cosgrove Hall Ate My Brain
     Meanwhile, Nyanko's index page is a suitably chilled and chorlting affair.
     Her design skills are fab. and always supported by splendid content
     and info...