Jungle Beat, a fun quirky CGI animated series of 5 minute self-contained episodes, is the first animation series from Zimbabwe and is dialogue-free and suitable for all ages. The series, which has already won several international awards, will consist of 13 episodes initially.
From producers Sunrise Productions, Jungle Beat features a cast of animals in bizarre situations, with hilarious results, including 'Always Take The Weather With You', where Monkey wakes to a very unfamiliar sight - snow covers the jungle in which he lives. It is the start of a very trying day for Monkey as the weather continues with its naughty tricks. Other stories feature adventures with Frog, Tortoise, Giraffe, Bee, Ant and Ostrich.
Jungle Beat is part of a package of animation from Sunrise that Monster will be representing internationally, including Once Upon a Stable and The Legend of the Sky Kingdom. Sunrise Productions was founded in 1998 by a group of Zimbabwean entrepreneurs whose priority is to consistently produce content-driven high quality entertainment to inspire people from all over the world.
The full list of episodes are as follows:
MONKEY 1 (Always Take the Weather With You)
Monkey wakes up as he has every other morning, although this morning is not like every other morning. Snow blankets the landscape, something monkey has never seen before. He has never known his mouth to be on fire before either, but smoke now comes out with every breath so it must be on fire. He rushes to the river to douse his mouth with water but the frozen surface doesnt offer the relief he had hoped for. He proceeds to get his lips stuck to the ice and, after, finally breaking through, he turns into a monkey popsicle. This is the first of the four seasons to play tricks on our poor monkey. Just shows what happens when you wake up on the wrong side of the tree.
BEE (You Give Me Fever)
Our bee wants to do a good job; he really does. Its just that collecting pollen when you happen to be allergic to it is not the easiest task in the world. But try he does and sneeze he does, often! His swarm moves on and he has nothing to show for his efforts. He gets more determined with every flower he encounters, but pollen ends up being the least of his worries when a spiders web gets involved.
TORTOISE (I Want to Break Free)
Tortoise has been lugging his shell around for a long time now, his whole life in fact, and he resents the fact that this clumsy heavy thing has been getting a free ride everywhere. Tortoise decides to step out of his shell and after an almighty struggle rids himself of the burden. He enjoys the new found freedom to start with but when a hungry eagle soars overhead he realizes that his shell definitely had its upside. Its a bit late to learn that now though. Tortoise lugs a rock onto his back to find safety from his aerial threat, but this is a lot heavier and more cumbersome than his snuggly fitting shell. Tortoise must get back to his shell!
GIRAFFE 1 (Because I Got High)
Giraffe has always enjoyed being tall because this means he can always reach the choicest fruit from the top of the tallest trees. When he drops a piece of juicy fruit and witnesses the mess it creates after falling that long way down he is not sure being this high up is the safest thing for him. The more giraffe thinks about what would happen if he were to fall the more uneasy he becomes and eventually decides it would be better if he were to come down to earth and stay there. So he does, he lies flat along the ground and moves along caterpillar-like with dexterous movements of his neck. This is fine for a while until those juiciest fruits on the tops of the tallest trees start to become irresistible.
OSTRICH (Born To Be Wild)
Mother ostrich is thrilled with one of her eggs first movements. She watches it wriggle and roll as the life inside starts trying to break out. As timing would have it her other three eggs all decide now is the time to break free too. Mother has a rather hair-raising time trying to contain her four escapees. Things go from bad to worse as one of the eggs ends up on the top of the tallest tree, while the other three make a break for it in the other direction.
HEDGEHOG (Stuck On You)
Hedgehog is a bit of a grumpy chap and does not enjoy the fact that a leaf has embedded itself on his spikes. In the process of trying to shake the leaf loose, hedgehog ends up rolling over a whole lot more leaves and ends up looking suspiciously like a bush. A bush with a very sour expression indeed. Hedgehog continues his gyrating to rid himself of his leafy coat but ends up replacing the leaves with petals by rolling through a field of flowers. And things go downhill from there for the poor fellow.
FROG (Shout, Shout Let It All Out)
A frogs pride and joy is his croak. It comes as quite a surprise then when our frogs croak decides to hop it. Frog lets out a mighty BWAAAH! and with that a green musical note jumps out of his mouth and hops away. Frog is speechless, literally. Try as he might he cant make a sound. A different musical note flutters by overhead. Frog eats it and immediately starts sounding like a bird. Another floats by, frog eats it, frog starts sounding like water every time he opens his mouth. Frog decides this is not fun so tries to catch up with his runaway croak.
ANT (And So The Feeling Grows)
As if ant isnt small enough, when he gets lost in the maze of tunnels in his underground home he stumbles across a strange liquid. He drinks it. He shrinks. Tiny tiny! His tunnels are now huge caverns and the other ants are giants he now has to evade. He finds his way to a different liquid and drinks it. He grows. Big big! The tunnels now press him in from all sides and he can barely squeeze through them. He hiccups and shrinks again
he hiccups and grows again
oh what a predicament.
GIRAFFE 2 (Moondance)
Giraffe is happily enjoying his nighttime stroll when he bumps his head on the moon and knocks it from the sky. Now giraffes arent perhaps the most intelligent of animals, but giraffe does know that this wasnt supposed to happen. Try as he might he cannot get it back in its place, it just wont stick. Giraffe proceeds to break and swallow the moon and create a few more stars in the process through a magical fusion of moonlight and dandelion seeds. Will the night sky ever be the same again?
MONKEY 2 (Yes We Have No Bananas)
Bananas are any monkeys delight. But not all monkeys would go to the lengths that our monkey does when a chasm separates him from his favorite food. With the help of a few vines, some dexterous acrobatics and ingenuity monkey makes his way to the other side of the chasm, but in so doing has inadvertently transported the bananas to the side he was originally on with no means of getting back to them. Oh what is a hungry monkey to do?
Bee 2 (Ive Look At Clouds From Both Sides Now)
All work and no play is a phrase that definitely does not apply to our bee. Instead of collecting pollen, which is what he should be doing, he uses a petal of his flower as a springboard and has a ball leaping high into the air. One high spring too many leaves him embedded in a cloud above. From here he discovers what clouds are really made of and gets further distracted from his work.
Tortoise 2 (Ive Got You Under My Skin)
Tortoise walks along casually, minding his own business, when he unknowingly steps on a dandelion. As the dandelion springs back up one of its seeds is released and gets blown into the tortoises shell. This is a rather distressing thing to happen to tortoise as scratching within his shell is not the easiest thing in the world for him to do. Things go from bad to worse as he tries to rid himself of the pesky seed.
Monkey 3 (Love Is In The Air)
Its been a long tiring day for monkey so he finds a comfy branch and promptly falls asleep. As he drifts away his tail becomes alert and has a look around. Monkeys tail spots a vine hanging in a tree a little way off and instantly falls in love with it. Tail proceeds to drag monkey around as it tries to reach the vine. Monkey wakes up now and then confused by his ever-changing position. He keeps heading back to his spot on the branch meaning tail has to start all over again. Where will it end?
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