Sam le pompier

I watched most episodes of this show with my son when he was 3 and 4 years old. While I loved the earlier stop motion version of Fireman Sam, my son roundly rejected it, instead preferring the shiny computer animated episodes. I think the computer animation lacks a little soul, but my son loved them.

My son was very interested in firefighting, and this is one of the few shows for little kids on the topic. So he loved watching it. The show was fairly entertaining for me.

Norman Price is the world's worst role model for a little kid. That said, he's so awful that my kids mostly griped about what an awful kid he is. That gave us a good starting point to talk about behavior.

I can remember first seeing this stop-motion animated kids' programme when I was very young, probably shortly before or after its demise. Like most other shows I can remember from my childhood, I liked this one a lot. I can also recall still watching reruns of it several years later. It has been over a decade since then, but I remember accidentally coming across the show on TV once a few years ago, and even if that hadn't happened, I would still remember it very well!

Fireman Sam was a firefighter who lived in Pontypandy, a town in Wales. Other main characters in the show included Sam's fellow firefighters (Station Officer Basil Steele, Penny Morris, Trevor Evans, and Elvis Cridlington) along with several other townspeople. He was a hero to the town, and certain people in the community often needed the help of Sam and the other firefighters, whether it was for a fire or something else, including Norman, a mischievous kid who often found himself in trouble due to his lack of self-control.

"Fireman Sam" was an educational programme which could teach kids about safety. To make it entertaining as well, the show was also rich with adventure and humour. A lot of the laughs came from Norman's mischievous ways. Another highlight was the very catchy theme song. For all those reasons, the show is very memorable, and I'm sure many kids today could enjoy it just as much as those who watched while they were kids in the '80s or '90s! I'm sure there are still reruns of the show played, so it's not one of those kids' shows that have been forgotten, fortunately.

Previously, the show had likeable characters, good animation, and good episodes. But the CGI series/seasons are just plain awful and one of the worst children's cartoons, Note: I will only be reviewing the CGI series/seasons.

For example, now Dilys (Norman's mother) has been completely redesigned! She looks almost nothing like her original design!

The only connections to previous seasons are: the names of the characters, the show still being set in Pontypandy (albeit with a different layout), the theme music, some of the character designs bearing a slight resemblance to how they looked in Season 5, and Sam still using his "Great Fires of London" !" catchphrase in seasons 6 and 7, but that's pretty much it.

This tries very hard to modernize Fireman Sam/Sam Tân.

CGI animation looks jagged, robotic, weird, scary, ugly, outdated, weak, etc.

Animation errors exist in these seasons as well, like in the episode "Floating Cart" where Norman, Mike, Helen and their van disappear for a very short time, but still. This has been fixed (at least in the US version) Another example is in the episode "Sticky Situation", where right at the beginning of the episode, you can see a literal red line (probably used to make the animation) on the right side of the screen. How did no one in the animation department notice this until James A Williams did?!

Also, many characters have had their personalities switched.

Norman Price is the worst example, and the only one I'm going to give, he has become annoying, selfish, idiotic, whiny, obnoxious, obnoxious, stupid, bratty, and arrogant who does horrible things for little reason.

The voice acting is sometimes painful to listen to.

For example, children (UK only) sound terrible, as they don't sound like children, but like adults with high-pitched voices.

The worst example is Norman Price, as Steve Kymann does a terrible job voicing him, and his voice in the UK is just unbearable, as it sounds like a cross between Carl Wheezer and JarJar Binks, with a Welsh accent.

I could say a lot more, but I think this quote says it all: "And I can easily agree that CGI Fireman Sam is definitely one of those bad reboots! Why do I call this a reboot instead of just Season 6 onwards? Because Season 6 seriously feels like I'm watching a completely different show! The characters look and act different, the setting is different, the animation is different, the feel is different. One of the best things about Season 5 was because even though it was made a few years after the original series ended, that season felt like a sequel season to the show. Kind of like Samurai Jack Season 5. The characters were the same, the setting was the same, the humor was the same, and some elements from the original seasons were present in this season. But Season 6 has basically nothing connected to the fifth season, or the other four seasons, except for, Sam's catchphrase of "Great Fires of London!", the characters' names and theme song. That's basically it!"

• James A. Williams, from his "CGI Fireman Sam" rant video

Once he TIED JAMES TO A CHAIR AND GLUED A DOOR SO POOR JAMES WAS STUCK IN THERE!

It doesn't help that he spends a lot of screen time in many episodes of these seasons, even when he's not the main focus. The writers seem to have the motto: "When in doubt, always put Norman into the scene"

This is a fun little show we discovered on our Comcast "On Demand" feature. It concerns the adventures of a team of firefighters in a small town in Wales. Fireman Sam is the main character, with several other folks in town contributing. One thing we appreciate about it is that it is not "diluted" for US audiences - the dialog contains several UK/Welsh specific phrases and terms, which my 6 year old son has had fun hearing, while learning how another culture expresses itself. The characterizations are standard but well-drawn; the firefighters are not superheroes, just brave and steady. There is the naughty boy who gets in scrapes and the average town folk who sometimes require the fire service. A good show for youngsters to view with characters they can understand, and very family-friendly without being sappy.

It's too kiddie and slow. It's nothing new.

Verdict: fire these animators.