HOT Animation

HOT Animation was a British animation studio owned by HiT Entertainment that specialized in stop-motion animation, cel animation, and computer animation. It was established on April 1st, 1998 by Jackie Cockle, Brian Little, and Joe Dembinski.

Their worldwide success followed with Bob the Builder, a British animated television series which follows construction builder Bob and the Can-Do-Crew of building vehicles. The theme tune was released as a single, Can We Fix It? with an accompanying promo produced at HOT, which beat Kylie Minogue's "Please Stay", Eminem's Stan and Westlife's "What Makes a Man" to become the Christmas number-one single.

The company then made a reboot of Brambly Hedge, a series of 30-minute specials based on the illustrated books for children by Jill Barklem, and Rubbadubbers, a series about bath toys that come alive. Pingu, a British-Swiss animated series about a family of penguins, was recreated with great success from 2003-2006.

HOT ceased to produce the main series of Bob the Builder after 2007 when the studio announced jobs would be cut, and opted to produce a direct to DVD series called Bob the Builder: On Site, using stop-motion from Bob's World and live action from real world construction sites. The studio closed sometime before HIT was purchased by Mattel in 2012.

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