Bertha is a British stop-motion animated children's television series about a factory machine of that name, comprising 13 episodes that aired from 1985 to 1986 on BBC 1 and 2. It was animated by Woodland Animations of Postman Pat fame and narrated by Roy Kinnear and Sheila Walker.
The series is set in an industrial estate occupied by the Spottiswood & Company factory, a small manufacturing plant producing a wide range of goods ranging from cuckoo clocks to windmill money boxes. Each episode focuses on a machine called Bertha that can produce any item requested of her. In each episode the factory experiences a crisis affecting its daily production schedule, which Bertha invariably solves with the help of her factory worker friends.
This show provides examples of:
- Bungling Inventor: Subverted with Mr. Sprott, as some of his inventions (such as the windmill moneyboxes in episode 2) actually function as they're supposed to.
- Cute Machines: Bertha of course! Plus TOM the robot.
- Do-Anything Robot: Well, do-anything machine, but Bertha qualifies.
- TOM somewhat qualifies, yet he can not make actual products like Bertha.
- Eek, a Mouse!!: Mrs. McClackerty's reaction upon learning that there's a mouse in the factory.
- Fun with Acronyms: TOM's name stands for Talk-Operated Machine.
- Grumpy Old Man: Mr Duncan acts like this to an extent.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Tracy to Mr Sprott.
- No Antagonist: The most antagonistic character is Mr. Duncan, and even then he's only doing his job as the foreman (although he can be a little bossy, humourless and over-demanding at times).
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Ted Turner bares a surprising resemblance to Bruce Forsyth.
- Punny Name: Mr. Willmake. As in, "will make anything".
- The Apprentice: Roy Willing. Even his own song reveals it in “The Big Order”.
- Title Drop: In "Mouse in the Works", when Mr. Duncan mentions that "we can't have a mouse in the works".
- Token Minority: Panjid is the only Indian member of the group.
- Violent Glaswegian: Downplayed with Mr Duncan, who isn't violent but is by far the grumpiest member of the Spottiswood crew.
- Averted completely with the mild-mannered Miss McClackerty.
- Waving Signs Around: In “More Speed, Less Work”, Ted, Roy, Nell and Flo each held signs that read ‘BERTHA IS BEST’ as part of their protest against Mr Duncan’s unnecessary changes.
- Ironically enough, the slogan was so popular that fans of Bertha use this tag on Twitter (#berthaisbest) to showcase Bertha fanarts, media etc.
- Women Are Wiser: Tracy is smarter than Mr. Sprott.
