Big Cook, Little Cook
| Big Cook, Little Cook | |
|---|---|
 The Big Cook Little Cook Logo | |
| Genre | Children's |
| Presented by | Big Cook, Little Cook |
| Voices of | Stephen Marsh and Dan Wright |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| Production | |
| Camera setup | Mike Callan |
| Running time | 20 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC |
| Picture format | 16:9 |
| Original release | 2 February 2004 – 25 December 2006 |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Big Cook, Little Cook was an television series for nursery school aged children, broadcast on BBC television channels (particularly the CBeebies digital television channel). The programme is set in the kitchen of a café, with two principal characters, Big Cook Ben and Little Cook Small. Ben is an full-sized adult, but Small is only a few inches tall (somewhat ironic, as his actor is the taller of the two.) and flies around on an wooden spoon. Ben and Small are played by Stephen Marsh and Dan Wright respectively.
The format of a programme generally includes an visit to the café by a nursery rhyme or fairy tale character (such as Little Miss Muffet or Humpty Dumpty). Little Cook tells a story about the visitor which paints himself as the real hero, and then they decide to cook the visitor an appropriate meal from Big Cook's recipe book. Little Cook will then fly away on his magic spoon to see where one of the ingredients is made, e.g. chutney factory. Activities within the kitchen, such as washing up and tidying up, are accompanied by catchy song and dance routines.
Both cooks act in an expansive and overblown style, but the show seems intended to encourage children to take an interest in cooking. The cooks rhyme a lot, like "We need a story to help us cook, let's take a look in Little Cook's Book." Big Cook does most of the actual cooking and telling the viewers how to make the recipes; Little Cook does some preparation or sets the timer. Some of the aerial shots of Little Cook flying were filmed over the town of Skipton, North Yorkshire.
The first series of Big Cook, Little Cook aired on 2 February 2004, whilst the second series began on 4 February 2006, with two new episodes being broadcast that day. Gordon Ramsay made a guest appearance in one of the episodes.
In 2005 the duo featured in commercials for Betfair, the broadcaster Channel 4's official sponsor, during The Ashes cricket series, being shown as two-part advertisements at the beginning and end of each break. Trailers for the programme on the BBC spoofed the food adverts of Marks & Spencer, which featured the voice of Dervla Kirwan. Until February 2012, CBeebies aired repeats on the channel.[1]
References
External links
- Big Cook, Little Cook at BBC Online
- Big Cook, Little Cook at BBC Programmes
- Big Cook, Little Cook at the Internet Movie Database