Ruffus the Dog

*Ruffus the Dog*
Ruffus the Dog
Genre	Children's television series
Created by	Robert Mills and Cheryl Wagner
Directed by	Robert Mills
Starring	Robert Mills; Bob Stutt; Gord Robertson; Fred Stinson; Karen Valleau; Ben Deutsch
Composer	JP Houston
Country of origin	Canada
Original language	English
Production
Executive producers	Robert Mills ; John Leitch
Producers	Cheryl Wagner; Robert Mills
Editor	Frank Moressa
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Production companies	Radical Sheep Productions; Hunkey Dorey Entertainment; YTV
Original release
Network	YTV
Release	1998 –; 1999

Ruffus the Dog is a Canadian children's television series which aired on YTV from 1998 to 1999; it was created by Robert Mills, who performs the title character, and developed with Cheryl Wagner. The show was produced through Radical Sheep Productions, a company founded by Mills in 1985 that also created The Big Comfy Couch. The Ruffus character had previously appeared in the educational video series The Adventures of Ruffus & Andy in the early 1990s, as produced by the Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga, Ontario, where Ruffus and his owner Andy learned medical lessons.

When Robert Mills left Radical Sheep in 2002, ownership and rights to the award-winning series were transferred to his new company, Hunky Dorey Entertainment. In 2010 Mills announced all of the original shows would be posted online under a Creative Commons license, and that they want to produce new episodes for online release. The first major production was a re-telling of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol with Ruffus playing Ebenezer Scrooge. Six of the show's original puppeteers, Robert Mills, Bob Stutt, Gord Robertson, Fred Stinson, Karen Valleau, and Ben Deutsch, returned for the project, as did songwriter JP Houston. Alyson Court, who played Loonette the Clown on The Big Comfy Couch, voiced the Ghost of Christmas Past.

In 2013, the Ruffus Project embarked on production of a new web series entitled: Ruffus The Dog's Steampunk Adventure.

Also in the works were a series of illustrated book titles and a pre-school web series entitled: Ruffus Rhymes.

Synopsis

Ruffus the Dog runs a bookshop in a small town. There, he reads a famous fairy tale to the viewers. In the story, Ruffus and several other characters portray different characters in the tale. At the end, he talks about the moral of the story to the viewers.

Episodes


Title	CC BY-NC-SA-2.5 release date
Rapunzel	July 13, 2010
Robin Hood	July 13, 2010
Jack & The Beanstalk	July 13, 2010
Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde	July 20, 2010
The Frog Prince	July 21, 2010
The Brave Little Tailor	July 26, 2010
Around The World In 80 Days	August 3, 2010
The Three Little Pigs	August 10, 2010
Little Red Riding Hood	August 18, 2010
Little Bo Peep	August 22, 2010
Sinbad The Sailor	August 31, 2010
Aladdin & The Magic Lamp	September 8, 2010
Tom Thumb	September 15, 2010
Robinson Crusoe	September 22, 2010
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea	September 28, 2010
The Three Bears	October 6, 2010
The Emperor’s New Clothes	October 21, 2010
The Three Musketeers	October 28, 2010
The Troll Under The Bridge	November 3, 2010
The Pied Piper	November 10, 2010
The Second Voyage Of Sinbad	November 19, 2010
Rip Van Winkle	February 23, 2011
Gulliver’s Travels	March 14, 2011
Hansel & Gretel	April 19, 2011
King Midas	May 5, 2011
Cinderella	June 13, 2011
Ruffus The Dog’s Christmas Carol	December 17, 2011

External links

Ruffus the Dog at IMDb
Ruffus the Dog
Ruffus The Dog's Steampunk Adventure website at the Wayback Machine (archived 2016-03-04)
Case Study of the series by Creative Commons
Ruffus the Dog is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive