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New version of Orinoco And The Big Black Umbrella

Orinoco And The Big Black Umbrella DVD

Two years after the first UK Wombles DVD (from Columbia TriStar), a new version with the same title, Orinoco And The Big Black Umbrella, has been released by Abbey Home Media.

This time it contains the first 12 episodes rather than 10, from the original 1973 TV series. This sets things up nicely for an eventual set of five discs to cover the full 60 episodes, so make sure you support this release even if you’ve already got the 2004 version!

Pauline Gaiger from Abbey Home Media tells me: “We have bought the old FilmFair catalogue so have lots of Wombles episodes to distribute, and we will most definitely be releasing another DVD towards the end of the year.”

The DVD has two ‘interactive extras’ - Meet The Wombles, with profiles of Great Uncle Bulgaria, Orinoco and Tomsk, and an eight-question trivia quiz, Bungo’s Brain-Teasers.

I also asked Pauline why they used a picture from the 1990s series, which includes characters such as Stepney who aren’t in these episodes. She explains: “We were supplied very little artwork from the original series. We had a real struggle trying to select a front image that was good enough to incorporate an eye-catching group shot for the sleeve, so we have had to substitute using a pic from the more recent series in order to have the original main characters all looking towards camera.”

Orinoco And The Big Black Umbrella is available now from Amazon.

Congratulations to the winners of our competition. Courtesy of Abbey Home Media, copies of the new DVD went to: