An Edutainment Show currently running on CBeebies which aims to teach children how to read and write using anthropomorphic letters called the Alphablocks. The Alphablocks live in a blank white world note , but when they hold hands to spell a word, that word comes to life, allowing them to fill it with colour and fun. The show aired between 2010 and 2013, but reruns are currently airing.
The show was created by Joe Elliot, who also created similar concepts, Numberblocks and Colourblocks.
See also The Letter People, a puppet show based on the same concept, and Alphabet Lore.
This show provides examples of:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: Alphablocks usually use words which start with their own letter whenever possible, which can lead to this. See T's catchphrases:T: "Anyone for tea?"// "Total tomfoolery!"// "Time for you-know-what!"
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: the bats, rats, and cat from "The Cat Sat on the Mat" wear hats.
- Aesop Amnesia: In "Little Red N", N learns to say 'yes' sometimes, and to not be so negative. However, by the next episode, he goes back to saying 'no' to everything.
- Alien Episode: In one episode, the Alphablocks meet an alien named Fred.
- All Animals Are Dogs: The cat in Cat wags its tail happily when T calls it by an Affectionate Nickname. In real life, GENTLE tail wagging in cats indicates contentedness, but fast wagging means anger.
- Alliterative List: A result of the Alphablocks liking alliteration, and listing things:T: Let's see. Ticket, toothbrush, teapot, teacup, ten teabags, tip-top!
- Amnesia Episode: In one episode, A cannot remember her name except when she's spelling a word with Y, I, or a silent E.
- Art Initiates Life: In "Pen", the Alphablocks create a pen which draws things that come to life.
- Artistic License – Law Enforcement: In one episode, I is made a cop and she decides what's illegal. In real life, the police don't decide what's legal and what's illegal.
- Bag of Holding:
- In "Plusman", an enormous pile of food somehow fits into a tiny lunchbox.
- In "Box", a box appears which contains a tower which is at least five times as big as it.
- Balloonacy: In "Up", all the letters fly into the sky with balloons.
- Balloon-Bursting Bird: In "Up", P, O, and another P create birds who pop the letters' balloons making everyone fall down.
- Band Episode: One episode involves B, D, and N deciding to form a band when they realise that B and N both play guitars and D plays the drum. They need a singer, and eventually A is chosen, which spells out BAND
- Battle of the Bands: In "Band", B and A want to play pop, but N and D want to play rock, so they split up their band and form two new bands, called 'Fab' and 'Din'. They then have a battle of the bands to see which band is better.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies:
- A giant bug carries the Alphablocks to the top of a giant plant in "Wish".
- U also rides on a big bug in "Win".
- Big Eater: M has only been not hungry once in the entire series.
- Birthday Episode: One episode is about T's birthday.
- Brits Love Tea: T drinks tea and he gives off the vibe of a fancy British dude.
- By "No", I Mean "Yes": N does not like saying 'yes', so he says 'no' in a lot of situations where he clearly means 'yes'.B: Do you want to join my-D: Our band?N: No! *Nods frantically* No!D: Is that a yes?N: Yes!
- By the Lights of Their Eyes: Whenever it gets dark, the letters' eyes are always still visible.
- Cargo Ship: In universe. In "Wig", O falls in love with a wig.
- Cassandra Truth: In "Ants", N gets the power to click his fingers and make a picnic appear, but when he tells the others, nobody believes him.
- Catching Some Z's:
- Whenever Z falls asleep, little Zs float out of his mouth. In "Zap", he zaps all of his Zs and has to get them back.
- When X is asleep, there are little floating Xs instead.
- Character Catchphrase: Several characters have lines of dialogue they commonly say.
- P: "I just popped in!"
- B: "B on bass!"
- D: "D on drums!"
- T: "Anyone for tea?"/ "Total tomfoolery!"/ "Time for you-know-what!"
- J: "I'm a jolly jaybird!" / "I can fly!" / "Jumping jellyblocks!"
- R: "Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!"
- Z: "Alphablocks! Attention!"
- Y: "Why?"/"Yikes!"
- I: "I know! note
- H: "Hooray!"
- W: "Wow!" / "Whoops!"
- G: "Good grief!" / "Gosh!"
- K: "OK!"
- Circling Birdies:
- In "Plusman", X hits his head on the ceiling, and little Xs float around his head.
- In "Lips", when each of the letters fall off the bed, they get a halo of stars around their head.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: J actually thinks she's a bird.
- Constantly Curious: Y's shtick is that he always wants to know the reason for things.
- Continuity Nod:
- In "Sing", B, A, N and D all form a band. The band shows up again in some later episodes, such as "Four".
- In "Band", D, I and N form another band, called 'Din'. Din appears again briefly in "Win" and in "Magic".
- Crossover: On February 2nd 2022, it is announced that Alphablocks will be in a set of crossover specials with its sister show Numberblocks, with the first special "Making Friends" to air on February 14th (AKA Valentine's Day).
- Crossover Villain-in-Chief: The second crossover has Octonaughty as the villain. It’s the only time he’s genuinely dangerous, trying to take over Alphaland.
- Doppelmerger: The main characters are alphabet-themed creatures who spell words. When they need more than one of a letter, the corresponding Alphablock will split into two and then become one when the copy is no longer needed.
- Dream Episode: "Zzzzz" is about Z's dreams.
- Dream Sequence: Most of "Zzzzz" is about Z's dreams.
- Dressed to Plunder: R wears a pirate hat and an eye patch.
- Emoticon: When Fred is happy, the symbol above his head changes to a smiley emoticon with three eyes.
- Everybody Cries: In "Party", S, A and D form the word "sad". All three start crying.
- Everything's Better with Rainbows: In "Rainbow", the Alphablocks create a rainbow which leads to a magical land.
- Extreme Omnivore:
- M eats many things, including the moon.
- The toad in "Toad" also eats a lot of things, including a watering can, a teapot and a magnifying glass.
- Eyepatch of Power: R can see perfectly fine with her eye patch.
- Fingerless Hands: The eponymous characters have hands that look like little mittens.
- Flight: F, S, and X can all fly. F and S use air, but with X it just seems to be a natural ability.
- Lampshaded when the three of them are splatter painting together because they can all fly.
- Forgot About His Powers:
- P could have used her Flashy Teleportation powers to escape from the trap in “Surprise” just like she escaped from the top of a mountain in “Top.”
- Likewise, X could have flown away from the cardboard golem in “Web.”
- Fractured Fairy Tale:
- In "Book", a book appears which tells the Alphablocks the story of Little Red Cool Riding Hood, and the Big Good Woof.
- In "Box", a performance of Sleeping Beauty briefly turns into Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks and the Three Bears when the blocks spell red and ted (teddy bear) respectivley.
- "Little Red N" is a parody of The Little Red Hen.
- One episode is a parody of The Gingerbread Man.
- Friendly Pirate: R is a pirate who is very good friends with the other Alphablocks and sometimes even helps them. She's not seen doing pirate things usually, but in Red, she does dig up buried treasure.
- Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal: In the space episode, the ape wears a spacesuit.
- Gender-Equal Ensemble: There are thirteen boys and thirteen girls.
- "Getting Ready for Bed" Plot: Lips has a parody of Five Little Monkeys about L putting the vowels to bed.
- Green Around the Gills: In "Fair", O goes green after riding the helter-skelter too many times.
- Hammerspace: T often pulls out a teapot and teacups from behind his back, though the teapot doesn't always have tea in it. E does the same with his megaphone, and I with her mirror.
- Hiccup Hijinks: In "Name", A gets the hiccups and can't say her own name.
- Hidden Depths:
- I is mostly just prissy, but she also likes rock music and is part of the 'Din' band.
- The cat from "The Cat Sat on the Mat" seems like a normal cat, until it puts on clothes and starts dancing.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Downplayed. J usually sings really badly when she tries making her sound to sing, but when she sings with actual lyrics, she has a good singing voice.
- "I Am" Song: E gets two songs— one about his being the "busiest" letter and another about how he can do "magic" by changing vowel sounds.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Nearly every episode's title, is a One-Word Title.
- Innocently Insensitive: N calls R’s pirate getup a “costume” in the Halloween special, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
- Intelligible Unintelligible:
- O only speaks in Pokémon Speak, but everyone else can understand him nonetheless. This is Lampshaded in the Numberblocks crossover episode "Making Friends":
O: O-o! O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o! O-o-o-o, O-o-o-o-o!U: You sure have a way with words, O.Three: You understood that? He just said "O".- Everyone can understand the robot in "Beep" even though he only ever says 'beep'. This results in a lot of Repeating So the Audience Can Hear.
- Invisibility Ink: I, N, and K make one in "Ink", and use their newfound Invisibility to prank others.
- Job Song: In Party, X sings about how he's a superhero.
- The Klutz: A tends to fall over and apples fall on her head.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: I boasts about being intelligent, but she seems to be just average in terms of intelligence. Likewise, she often claims she knows, when she doesn't.
- Large Ham: E and I are both very dramatic and loud.
- Left the Background Music On: At one point in "Cowboy", T and H walk up and stereotypical western music starts playing. The next shot reveals that it's caused by N playing the harmonica.
- Leitmotif: Whenever X appears, superhero music plays. Similarly, R's appearance is often signalled by pirate-esque music.
- Little Green Men: Fred the alien is a little green Alphablock.
- Magic Carpet:
- One appears briefly in "Wish", but it dematerialises before it can do anything.
- Another one appears in "Man", and M, A and T use it to chase a gingerbread man until M eats it.
- Meaningful Name: Plusman is a superhero (and X's alter-ego) who adds words together to form compounds and his name is a compound.
- Musical Episode: Many episodes have songs, which are usually based around one letter or phonic.
- "Bee" is about E and how he's the most common letter in the alphabet.
- "Magic" is about Magic E.
- "The Cat Sat on the Mat" is about words with the 'at' sound in them.
- "Song" is about the 'ng' combination.
- "Four" is about how you can make more complex words with four letters as opposed to three.
- "Home", "Sleep", "Blue", "Name" and "Mine" are about different ways of making o, e, u, a and i sounds, respectively.
- "Fox" is about the sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", and how it uses all the letters.
- The Noseless:
- O doesn't have a nose, though everyone else does.
- It’s possible that J doesn’t have a nose, but she always wears her beak, so no one can be sure.
- One-Word Title: Most episodes have one simple word as a title, which is the focus of the episode.
- Out of Focus: Uncommon letters like Z, X and Q are in far fewer episodes than more common letters like T, N and the vowels, due to there being fewer simple words that can be made with them. However, when they do appear, they are usually the focus of the episode, while more common letters are often side characters.
- Perfectly Cromulent Word: In "Man", N says, "Nes I can!", presumably to avoid saying the word 'yes'.
- Pirate Girl: R wears an eyepatch and pirate hat, and talks like a stereotypical pirate.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: M wears a chef's hat, but never does any cooking.
- Plot Allergy: In "Cat", A is allergic to the titular cat, and sneezes whenever it comes near her. The Alphablocks manage to make the cat fall asleep, but then they create a dog, which O is allergic to.
- Plot Hole: In episodes other than "Cat", O and A come into contact with cats and dogs many times, but are not allergic to them.
- Pokémon Speak: O only ever says 'oh'.
- Polka-Dot Disease: In "Hill", I and double L briefly become ill, and are covered in green spots.
- Priceless Ming Vase: In "Crash", T is building a teacup tower, and desperately trying to keep A from knocking it over. It's eventually ruined when T pulls a teacup from the middle of the tower, causing it to collapse.
- Prone to Tears: W's shtick is that he cries a lot.
- Quintessential British Gentleman: T has a bowler hat, monocle and moustache, and likes to drink tea.
- Rhyming Title: "The Cat Sat on the Mat"
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: O and W, who are coincidentally the only male characters voiced by Lizzie Waterworth.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: When I is made a police officer and goes on a power trip making a bunch of things illegal, one of the things is pretending to be police. What she probably doesn't know is that pretending to be police really is illegal
. - Running Gag:
- A falling out of the sky, and apples falling on her head.
- P randomly appearing with a pineapple.
- M eating everything.
- Senior Sleep-Cycle: Though the Alphablocks don't have definite ages, Z has a white beard and generally looks like an old man. He also constantly falls asleep, usually while talking about how everyone must stay alert.
- Shaped Like Itself: In "Thing", a thing appears. I asks what it is, and T and H say that it's a thing.
- Shoddy Shindig: In "Superhero X", a group of letters try to throw a party but find it boring as there is nothing to do. However, X livens it up.
- Shout-Out:
- A pen draws hare ears on T. Seeing as T likes tea parties, this may be a reference to the March Hare and Mad Hatter's tea party from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
- In "Fred", F grows a shark fin, and Jaws-like music plays.
- In "Dots", O paints a parody of The Mona Lisa, with himself replacing the lady in the painting.
- Signature Instrument: B and N both have guitars: a bass guitar for B and a see-through guitar (which he calls “no guitar”) for N. They're often seen playing their instruments while Scatting with their letter sounds to the point of it being a Character Tic.
- Skyward Scream: I does this in the game version of Dot when top was spelled.
- O: O-o... (Uh oh...)
- Smelly Feet Gag: There have been a lot of smelly socks and, in Moon, a big smelly foot.
- Space Episode:
- In one episode, S, P, A, C, and E all go to space and are driven home by an ape.
- In another episode, some characters go to the moon.
- Spaghetti Kiss: In "Toad". M and the toad drink the water in a moat and end up kissing.
-
Spiritual Successor: Numberblocks, which is the same concept but with numbers instead of letters.- In 2022, the show Colourblocks would be made, acting as a spiritual successor to both shows.
- Storybook Episode: In "Little Red Hen", N and some animals reenact The Little Red Hen.
- Strange-Syntax Speaker: Letters often rearrange sentences or even miss out words entirely so the sentence starts with a word which begins with their letter.
- Strong Ants: In "Ants", a single ant walks off with a whole stack of apples.
- Sudden Anatomy: The characters will occasionally grow an index finger from nowhere.
- Superheroes Wear Capes: X is a superhero and wears the typical red cape.
- Talk Like a Pirate: R says, "Rrr" a lot and calls her friends "shipmates".
- Tareme Eyes: W.
- Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: All the girls have eyelashes except A, and most of them have Tsurime Eyes while most of the boys have smaller round or oval eyes. Q and G are also the only characters to have hair, and are both female.
- Tired After the Song:
- At the end of E's song about who he is, he falls asleep, the implication being that he's tired from being in so many words.
- In "Quick", Q's song keeps getting quicker and quicker until U can't take it anymore and quits which makes everyone fall down from exhaustion.
- Trademark Favorite Food / Drink: P likes peas, and T likes to drink tea.
- Tsurime Eyes: Most of the girls have these.
- Two Beings, One Body: The letters can merge to create di- and trigraphs.
- The Unintelligible: Fred speaks gibberish, but can communicate by altering the symbol on his head.
- Vague Age: Nobody's age is stated. We only have some vague clues:
- Everyone lives independently, they're all the same size, and no one goes to daycare or school, suggesting they're adults.
- On the other hand, L has tucked the vowels, plus B and D, into bed, suggesting that they're children but she's an adult.
- Z is explicitly elderly and he's said to be ”old” on the official website. T also appears old since his moustache is white.
- X calls himself Plusman once, suggesting he's an adult.
- Y is said to be young.
- O once sleeps in a cot, but he can't be a baby since he can walk, live independently, doesn't wear a diaper, and Y is younger than him and all the above applies to him too, plus he can talk. It's possible O is three and Y is two (since three is the oldest age for sleeping in cots), but it would be odd having a two-year-old and a three-year-old living independently, plus they're no smaller than the others.
- F and M (unless his chef's hat is just for show) have jobs, suggesting they're adults.
- Visible Invisibility: In “Ink,” whenever an Alphablock becomes invisible, the letter on their head is still visible.
- Visible Odor: Anything described as stinky gives off a green mist.
- The Voiceless: Zigzagged. Magic E doesn't speak at all in some episodes, reflecting how the 'e' at the end of a word such as 'cake' isn't pronounced, but changes the sound the vowel makes. However, he does speak in other episodes, and in "Magic" he sings a whole song.
- Who's on First?: Many letters sound the same as words, which often leads to jokes like this:I: I know an I when I see one.One: No, this is my eye.
- Worthless Yellow Rocks:
- In "Rainbow", G, O, L and D find a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. They tip out all the gold and keep the pot.
- In "Champ", S and H win a case of money. They turn it down, because they don't need a box of paper.
