This site was revamped on 20th Feburary 2012

For many years I have been trying to convince people that a long time ago there was a children's TV series about a little gnome with a fluffy white beard, who lived in a tree.

On suggesting such things I have been met with weird looks and comments that can only suggest that these people must have been on a different planet to me during the late 60s /early 70s. I have known all my adult life that I was not going mad and that this little Woodgnome did indeed exist on British TV screens 40 or so years ago.

Even though the evidence of this wonderful tv series is very sparse, I am now able to offer a small piece of proof that I did, indeed, sit in front of the telly as a little boy and watched in wonderment as the program title sequence slowly focused in on Paulus standing at his front door, in his tree, in the middle of the wood.
TV Times (ATV)
03/10/1969 at 4:45pm

Paulus the Woodgnome (Paulus de boskabouter in his native Dutch) was created by Jean Dulieu (real name Jan van Oort) in the Netherlands and first appeared on Dutch television in October 1967. Forty episodes were made, each being 10 minutes long. They were made in colour and were also dubbed into English for distribution to the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Jean Dulieu made all the puppets for the series, the smallest of these puppets being a 3cm mouse. He also made all the scenery and dwellings. All the dwellings could be disassembled to allow camera access for interior shots.

Left: Crew working on set


Jean Dulieu with Paulus

Characters:

Paulus - Paulus is a Woodgnome. He lives in a tall tree in the middle of the woods. He is friends with all the woodland animals and is always helpful and full of advice.

Eucalypta - The wicked witch of the woods. Always ready to do dastardly deeds to Paulus with her potions and poisons.

Oehoeboeroe - "Without a shadow of a doubt" the wise old owl of the woods.

Salomo - A raven.

Gregorius - A badger.

Other characters include;

Crackers

Hoo Roo

Snatch

Bristles

I presume there are others but information about them is a bit thin on the ground. If you have any more information that would be useful please email paulus@mctowers.f9.co.uk.
A scene in which
Eucalypta the witch is looking on as
Paulus goes on his merry way.

There seems to be very little media available (in English anyway) of Paulus the Woodgnome. However, "The Uk Archivist" (aka Chris) emails the tower with details of a FULL episode.

Chris says: "About 20 years ago I bought a English Language episode of Paulus the Woodgnome on 16mm - Not the most brilliant of quality, but I digitised it at DV quality and cleaned up the poor quality sound....I loved it (Paulus) as a kid too, and yes it is weird. I hope this will bring back some fond memories for all who loved it."

Chris has uploaded to YouTube for everyone to enjoy. So sit back, put your feet up, pour a beer and enjoy the most surreal childhood memory you are most likely to experience.

>>> Paulus the Woodgnome <<<

There are also some mp3 files of the theme tune. The first is the English version. It seems to have been ripped from the video and is quite poor quality but also contains the end theme. Click here to listen. The second mp3 is the original Dutch version and can be accessed here.

Some of the comments left by visitors to this site over the last three or four years. These comments may even contain exta information that others may find useful:-

{from} writes :

{message}

Production information on this page was translated from Dutch and, therefore, I cannot guarantee that the information is 100% correct or even translated properly. This information on this site refers to the Original television adaptation of Jean Dulieu's comic book characters. A second adaptation was commissioned but as far as I can gather Mr Dulieu had nothing to do with it and a different puppet/animation style was adopted. It is only the original adaptation and TV series that we are interested in on this site.

If you can help with more screen shots of this program or with more information regarding the characters, storylines etc.. please get in touch. It would also be good to here your memories of Paulus.

paulus@mctowers.f9.co.uk