Green Balloon Club is a wildlife club on CBeebies, both on screen and online. It is hosted by 4 children: Lily-Rose who loves flowers and plants, Ant whose specialty is minibeasts, Cat who is the animals expert and Jay whose interest is in birds. Together with Skipper the dog and their balloonist, Sky, the children fly around the UK looking out for other Green Balloon Club Members and having a look at what wildlife they have in their patch. Special reporters for the programme are Jelly, Nature Chris and Bill Oddie. The programme was conceived and made by Clare Bradley, Lotte Elwell and the CBeebies Production team, and grew out of their previous award-winning work on CBeebies Springwatch and Autumnwatch. The show was originally part of the "EcoBeebies" brand. It started with a launch show named Easy Peasy Eco Beebies on 13 June 2008, and this was followed by 48 episodes, one every week from 20 June 2008 to 29 May 2009. Each episode starts with the children doing the register, then joining in with the "Green Balloon Club" chant. At the end of the show, the balloon "lands" and everybody sings a song.
Green Balloon Club Goes on Holiday (2009)
In 2009, a stand-alone series of 10 episodes was broadcast. The first half featured the Green Team visiting the Isle of Arran and the second half featured the Green Team becoming zookeepers in Belfast Zoo for a week.
Winter Special (2009)
A stand-alone Winter Special was aired in December 2009, which featured the entire cast going on a winter camping adventure.
''Green Balloon Club Scrapbook'' (2010)
In 2010, a spin-off series of 15 episodes entitled "Green Balloon Club Scrapbook" was produced which showed "what the Green Team get up to when they're not in the Green Balloon. Different members of the team check the laptop to find out what the other members of the Green Balloon Club are getting up to". This series also included 2 song specials.
Songs
All the music for the series was written by Paul Moessl and performed by the cast.
and a final special arrangement of the Title song for the Winter Special
Cast
Isabella Blake-Thomas as Lily Rose: the youngest of the kids. Her interest is flowers and she is often seen holding some.
Jake Pratt as Jay : A bird expert in the group. He is interested in birds. Pratt was the only presenter to be in a professional Drama school.
Debbie Korley as Sky: the balloonist of the group. She also leads the group on various adventures.
Adam Wells as Ant: A bug expert who knows about various bugs and ants.
Thai Murray-Edwards as Cat: an Animal expert. She likes cats.
Aliex Yuill as Jelly
Chris Howard as Himself
Bill Oddie as Himself
Ellie-Jo Pratt as the voice of Skipper the dog Ellie-Jo Pratt is Jake Pratt's younger sister.
The cast were ordinary children all found at extensive auditions. Jake Pratt was the only one of the children who was at drama school. Isabella Blake-Thomas was the youngest at just 5 when she started on the series.
Production team
Producer – Clare Bradley
Director – Lotte Elwell, Graham Forester, Peter Eyre
Note: episode 13 was not shown between episodes 12 and 14, as it was shown within the Christmas schedule
International airings
The show began airing in Australia on their version of CBeebies in late 2009, in time for the summer season. As of 2018 the show still airs on the channel, in a late night slot.
The show also aired on CBeebies Poland from 2010 to 2013, titled Podróże z Zielonym Balonem and dubbed into Polish by now-defunct dubbing company Eurocom Studio.