IT'S time to meet a family with a difference in Twirlywoos - a co-production involving Altrincham-based animators MacKinnon and Saunders.

Animator director Andy Burns said while the show is aimed at the under 5s there is strong evidence that it's winning over older fans thanks to it's comedy appeal.

MacKinnon and Saunders have teamed up with Ragdoll Productions to bring Twirlywoos, a mixture of animation and live action, to the small screen.

Andy said: "The Twirlywoos are a family of four - there's Great Big Hoo, who's the great big blue one, Toodloo and Chickedy and Chick. Each episode is based on a concept. They live on a boat, they arrive at the beach and the hooter on the boat calls them out into the real world. Then it cuts to a live action sequence where they witness something. For example, for the round and round episode they watch a girl and her father on a roundabout going round and round. They're very curious creatures who are interested in the world and don't know anything."

Andy said children can answer questions posed by the colourful characters in the show which helps develop their self-confidence.

He said: "It's an entertaining programme with an educational slant to it as well."

Andy added: "It's about teaching children the very basic principles of up and down, round and round and things like that. The other thing is the Twirlywoos are very simple characters and the idea is the children know more than them. There's a lot of interaction, looks to the camera and the Twirlywoos are looking for the children to shout out and respond to the screen. So they're telling the Twirlywoos the answers."

The programme is already into it's 50 episode run and animation is painstaking work. It takes a whole day to produce 10 seconds on screen and an entire episode of Twirlywoos takes two weeks to make.

* Twirlywoos is on CBeebies Monday to Friday at 9.25am, with a repeat at 1.25pm.