King Rollo: Story, Cast and Series Facts

Story and premise

King Rollo was a children's character created by David McKee in 1979, starring in a series of books, animations (narrated by Ray Brooks), and a comic strip in the magazine Buttons. In all, thirteen episodes of the animation were produced in 1980 (shown in two halves), by McKee's own King Rollo Films, and originally shown as part of the pre-school 'See-Saw' strand. The central character of the stories was Rollo himself, a child-like King who was always in need of advice and assistance from his friends. Among these were The Magician (a father figure) Cook (the king's cook, a mother figure, who was arguably the real ruler of the kingdom); his neighbour, Queen Gwen; King Frank; and perhaps most importantly, Rollo's cat, Hamlet, who was generally portrayed as wiser than Rollo himself. The animations used the same distinctive colourful cut-out paper look as McKee's other works, such as Mr Benn, and one memorable aspect was that the characters' legs would rotate outwards when walking until they were at right-angles at the sides of their body.

Series details

• Title: King Rollo
• Format: Animation
• Language: English
• Genres: Children
• Premiere date: 1980-10-01
• Final broadcast date listed: 1980-12-31
• Status in TVmaze: Ended
• Network listed by TVmaze: BBC One
• Network country: United Kingdom
• Typical episode runtime: 5 minutes
• TVMaze ID: 39096
• IMDb ID: tt0080237
• TVDB ID: 72517

Cast and credited roles

• Ray Brooks — Narrator

Seasons in the TVmaze catalogue

• Season 1: premiered 1980-10-01; final listed air date 1980-12-31; episode order: 13.

Source and licence

Adapted from King Rollo on TVmaze. The synopsis is reproduced as plain text; catalogue facts, cast and season records are selected and reformatted. This adapted text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, following the TVmaze API licence. Network and web-channel credits identify the service listed in this source; they do not establish current streaming availability.