Nicholas Cartoon Films

The message of this coastguard film was to raise awareness that HM Coastguard had become a ‘999’ service enabling the public to raise the alarm as it does for other emergency services. It was made in 1968 and, highly unusually for an animation short, remade and re-released in 2006.

Long after debuting on British television in the 1980s, this popular cartoon series for kids -- narrated by the ghostly Willo (who is, in fact, a mere wisp) -- now enjoys a comfortable cult status among adults. Hounded by the meddlesome Evil Edna -- a wicked witch who inhabits a TV set -- Mavis, Carwash, Arthur and the other inhabitants of Doyley Woods (voiced by Carry On star Kenneth Williams) do their best to stay out of her way.