Roll The Credits! We Spotted A Maltese Surname At The End Of A Kids’ TV Show And It Took Us On A Whirlwind Adventure Of Discovery
Most of us enjoy blockbuster movies or classic films, and the Maltese love them even more so when they spot a familiar surname in the credit rolls. Some of us prefer to watch Thomas and Friends to help us fall asleep at night and hey, we won’t judge; we totally do that too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs9V5njC9X0
While not the most exciting of kid’s shows, there is a reason why this is all significant.
Someone by the name of Denise Cassar wrote a few of their episodes.
Yes, and that’s not all.
Denise Cassar is not just any old children’s TV scriptwriter. She’s an award-winning children’s TV scriptwriter and has worked on enough shows for us to justify listing them as an actual list rather than a long sentence interspersed with a bunch of commas.
Her showreel currently lists:
- Puffin Rock – a Northern Irish show about a puffin living on the Irish coast.
- Ella Bella Bingo – a show following happy-go-lucky Ella using her imagination to solve everyday problems.
- Wissper – an animated series about a girl who talks with animals.
- Raa Raa the Noisy Lion – a stop-motion show about a fun-loving, noisy little lion and his friends.
- Zingzillas – a show very similar to the Tweenies with a focus on music.
- Abadas – a show set inside of a pop-up book.
- Waybuloo – a show any late 90s kid in the UK or Canada will remember for the glossy-animated flying monkey things that just never left the screen like a mosquito on your arm when the sun goes down in Summer.
- Postman Pat – we shouldn’t have to explain this one. He’s a postman and his name is Pat.
- Get Squiggling – basically ChalkZone for toddlers.
- Jim Jam and Sunny – nightmare Twinkies with a splash of The Purge.
- Fun With Claude – one site describes this show with “inquisitive bear learns new things”.
Easily a heavyweight in the children’s entertainment industry, Denise is making Malta proud and we’ve been pretty oblivious to her existence – probably as oblivious as she is to the existence of this article.
Denise grew up in South Africa where she studied for her Bachelors (Hons) in English and Drama at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. She also worked for Fox Entertainment Group (the guys who deliver shows like Family Guy and American Dad) as a Voice Artist, wrote for the BBC from 2004 to 2010 and had a very short stint with the Walt Disney Group in 2013.
But her list of accolades would be nothing without a mention as to how she got her foot in the door.
In today’s instalment of What The Fuck News, we learnt that Denise’s first writing credits were for the South African spinoff of Sesame Street: Takalani Sesame.
Denise also works as a VA for many of the shows she has written for and after migrating from South Africa to the UK, she also began to work with businesses in London on presentation training.
It really is bizarre how far the Maltese roots have stretched throughout the world, and it warms the heart to know that just like a rat in London, you might never be more than five feet away from a fellow Malti (or at least someone with a Maltese surname).