Horrid Henry

Horrid Henry used to be the posterboy of CITV, Having been made exclusively for the fact CITV was going to become its own full-fledged channel and it was going shut down its in-house production for making orginal live-action programmes in a matter of months, futher emphaizing the pressure on its originated animated programmes to entain its audience.

Horrid henry launched a few months after the launch of the CITV channel, it quickly became one of the channel most popular animated programmes, so much that it even got its own movie a couple years later.

On the other hand, the programme is infamous having animation and sound errors, most of which is more prominent in the first series, but thankfully the programme improves its animation and sound in the later seasons. Even the actual animation and sound errors itself are minor and insignificant and hard to notice at first glance.

Series 1-3 of Horrid Henry are the most memorable due to having hilarious, exhilarating and great moments in those episodes. The first theme tune of the programme was also catchy and memorable.

Series 4 and 5 whilst being good, is considered the weakest seasons of the programme as it introduced alot of changes. Series 4 introduced new intro scenes as well as having a completely different theme tune. Horrid Henry's behaviour and personality is completely changed, as well as the blaintant fact that Henry becomes surprising less Horrid and becomes a lot nicer to the people around him. The formula of series 4 is full of episodes showcasing simplistic slice-life episodes the whole programme from thenward out simply becomes a generic children's animated sitcom. Series 4 was also the last ever series of the Programme to air on CITV.

Series 5 does not improve on any of the problems that series 4 had instead even making some of those problems worse in some episodes of the series. Series 5 also switched networks and was only broadcast on Nicktoons UK. Nicktoons UK gained the rights of the programme in May 2018 so it seemed both channels were airing series 1-4 repeats of Horrid henry now, around the same time a fifth series of the programme was commissoned, and both channels were raring to go to broadcast series 5, however CITV fully lost the rights to the programme in January 2019 and as a consequence not only was CITV barred from airing the new series, it also was not allowed to broadcast anymore repeats of series 1-4 of the programme, effectively marking the end of an era for Horrid Henry on its time on CITV. The style of animation in series 5 slightly differed depending on episodes, some episode of series 5 was still animated in handrawn animation just like the older seasons, whilst other episodes was animated in flash animation instead probably due to lack of budget. The flash animated episodes are still good and not too downright bad, the flash animations causes changes the character's features and makes the movements of the character look too stitly and jilted and rigged. Series 5 was the shortest season overall probably because ideas could not be thought out for ten worth of episodes so the number of episodes decreased by ten, making it have 42 episodes in total when series 1-4 of Horrid Henry had 52 episodes each instead. Series 5 was full of bad to medicore episodes.

I am only on here because my 4 year old daughter discovered this show through Netflix. So maybe I needed to read these books first, or discover this show when I was younger, as these other reviews seem so good???

My opinion on this show: Henry's behavior is indeed horrid. Peter is a spoiled brat, treated as a favorite of his parents. His parents are horrible parents. Everyone on the show could be called HORRID.

One quote I heard the mom say once is "Henry, why can't you be more like Peter?" Maybe you should love all your kids equally even though they are all different with different personality traits and all that? Maybe when you say things like that it makes the kids behavior even more awful? Maybe it makes him feel like he will never be good enough for his parents??? The whole concept of this show makes me shudder. The introduction of "Perfect Peter" makes it all the more worse for me.

I don't know, but this show hit a nerve because I normally don't bother reviewing kids shows, but I would give it ZERO starts if I was able to, sort of like the episode my daughter just finished watching where Henry got zero stars for cleaning his room!!!

Overall the show is good. But not for children below 12. The way Henry pranks his brother Peter, Margaret and every other character is fun to watch. The reason why i gave 9 is because the same show looks completely different and better in Hindi. Weeks ago, i watched same episode in both English and Hindi simultaneously. And honestly, English version wasn't funny and some dialogues weren't good. For example in Halloween episode of season 1, Henry cuts Peter's hair just for fun. Their mother comes and in English version she says, "Don't be Horrid, Henry!" with a soft voice. But in Hindi, the same dialogue is 'Thappad padega, Henry' (you're gonna get slapped Henry) with angry and loud voice. I'm not saying that Hindi>English but the English voice acting isn't that good honestly.

Francessca Simon's books are a real pleasure to me. When I am feeling stressed and need someone to uplift or amuse me, I always read one of the Horrid Henry books and I feel so much better already. In fact the books are so good with hilarious situations and dialogue and a naughty but still endearing titular character, that when I occasionally work at my mum's school and there's nothing for me to do the Horrid Henry books are something I love to read.

When I first heard of this series, I wasn't so sure whether it would work. The books are so good and wholly deserving of a series, but I was worried it would perhaps turn it into some moralistic programme with little of the humour that helped make the books so engrossing. Actually, it wasn't that. In spirit, this respects the books very nicely and it is a wonderful and very funny series on its own.

The animation is very nice. The characters in general are drawn very well, and the background and colours are plentiful and easy on the eyes. The music is good too, the background music doesn't intrude too much while the main theme is zany. The stories are a lot of fun, with lots of hilarious situations, the pace is fast and crisp, and the writing often makes me laugh.

The characters are engaging too, Henry is everything his counterpart in the books is, and all the other characters show great personalities and are endearing in their own way. The voice acting is excellent with no weak links but also nobody who outclasses everybody else.

Overall, this is a wonderful and very funny series. 9/10 Bethany Cox

No doubt this show has been faithful to the original books it's based on. It's also one of the few animated shows on Citv that's popular. Most other series on that network tend to be broadcast ed but get no attention what-so-ever. It's like there there to fill out Citv's time slot on the condition they get no popularity at all. Horrid henry is different. Probably cause It's based on a book and stuff. Heck it even got a Movie! This show's got a lot of stuff for kid's to enjoy, however there is lot of empty space there that could have been used to interest Adult viewers or viewers of my age (I'm 15). The shows cute and realistic and all however nowadays I yearn more for the surrealism of Regular Show, The Destructivness of Ed,Edd n Eddy and the politically- Incorectness of South Park.

It's a decent show for kids though and It used to be one of my childhood favourites!