Children's Film Foundation
Entry updated 11 May 2026. Tagged: Community, Film.
The Children's Film Foundation (CFF) was founded in 1951 to provide specifically British entertainment for young Cinema and Television viewers, amidst concern that the dominant US market was unsuitable. Before ceasing production in 1988, the Foundation made or distributed dozens of films and television serials, many still fondly remembered, and giving early roles to dozens of familiar British television and film faces. Science fiction (see Children's SF) and fantasy played a considerable role in their output from the early 1960s. An early 1970s example, Kadoyng (1972), has all the elements of the CFF at its most endearing: plucky but realistic kids who sort out problems themselves, with a generally unsentimental view of childhood; broad comedy of the slapstick and fish-out-of-water varieties; bungling Villains who are entertainingly defeated; a positive moral message that is not too intrusive. This was the formula for the CFF's sf films that was successfully repeated in The Glitterball (1977) and Sammy's Super T-Shirt (1978), among others.
A further CFF production covered in this encyclopedia is A Hitch in Time (1978). [CWa]
see also: Howard Thompson.
previous versions of this entry