Hey Duggee Adventure Bus and Playset | Funny Role Play Action | Two Play Figures | Accessories | Picnic and Park Fun | CBeebies Show | Age 3+

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Duggee is a lovable brown dog who runs The Squirrel Club; a place where children take part in all sorts of exciting activities, have adventures and earn badges for their accomplishments. When the squirrels step out of the clubhouse, anything might happen – they might go on some psychedelic trip up the river to the heart of darkness or they might skip dreamily through waving corn. There’s a seesaw for members of Duggee’s Squirrel Club to enjoy, and a swing that clips onto the side. I think in the middle of all this fear, obfuscation, lack of trust and mixed to poor messaging, Hey Duggee is uncomplicated and feelgood,” says Landreth. It would be disingenuous to say that we didn’t think about inclusivity, but we didn’t want to be preachy with it,” says Orchard.

The Squirrels learn what a favourite is, but have trouble deciding what their own favourite things are, so they make a film asking some of their friends what is special to them to help narrow it down. Its songs have been played on Newsnight, fans include Orbital – and the show’s storylines ask the big questions about art and life. Each seven-minute episode involves a bunch of animal children (a crocodile, octopus, hippo etc, all confusingly referred to as “squirrels”) spending time with Duggee, a kind of canine scout leader who heads up Squirrel Club.Orchard says that some voice actors emerge sweating from the booth after putting their all into voicing the astonishing array of secondary characters in the show.

Studio AKA’s Grant Orchard is the creator of Hey Duggee, and says his two energetic boys were key to the show’s framework: “I was always looking for things to do with them, and so I thought it would be great to have a show that would inform people about how to entertain rambunctious kids. The brightly coloured animation is creative, inclusive, joyous and ever so gently educational – and the ratings reflect that. When she was talking affectionately to her grandchildren, she had a way of making her voice purr slightly; it was so warm and loving you could wrap it around you like a blanket.

My 2 year old runs around the house screaming Duggie hug at everyone then starts giving a great big hug! Halfway through the first series, we realised that we had access to the entire BBC back catalogue, so we really went for it,” Orchard says. The simple geometric shapes that make up the characters (the frogs are just triangles with eyes) make animation far swifter.

Each episode features a different badge that the kids get to earn and teaches a different lesson (or at least tells a nice story) and it's all good fun. I just think it’s a masterpiece, and I’m over the moon that I get to be in it,” says Armstrong, before adding with customary flourish: “Well done, squirrels! The premise of this show is that Duggee is somewhat of a scout leader who leads his scouts (the animal children) through different activities to earn badges. Such is the crossover love for Hey Duggee that the BBC used a Hey Duggee Stay at Home Badge video as part of its lockdown awareness campaign; a Handwashing Badge video swiftly followed, and garnered 97,000 views in the first 24 hours.Most people get that he’s adopted, but I’m pleased we are posing that question, even if we don’t explicitly answer it on the show,” he says. Sometimes, those characters carry a message: Rochelle in The Making Friends Badge uses a wheelchair, and Mr and Mr Crab are married, although there are no gay rights badges or disability badges. And he was thrilled when his mum – a voracious reader – mentioned that a fictional character in one of her books had shoved her kids in front of Hey Duggee.