The Adventures of Portland Bill

British stop motion animated TV series (1983–1986)

The Adventures of Portland Bill is a British stop motion animated children's television series made in 1983. It is set in a fictional lighthouse on the Guillemot Rock, just off the coast from the fictional village of McGuillycuddy. Norman Rossington provides the voice of all the characters, with Portland Bill the principal keeper acting as the narrator of each episode.

The idea was originated by John Grace and submitted to the competition 'Maritime England'. Most of the characters are named after the areas of the UK Shipping Forecast. Grandma Tiree and Inspector Ronaldsway are named after automatic weather stations and “Gail” is named after the high winds frequently forecast. The submission won the prize and was picked up by Graham Clutterbuck at FilmFair who went on to commission two series for ITV. At the time, John Grace and Mik Parsons were colleagues teaching in the Graphic Design Department at Leicester Polytechnic (now DeMontfort University). They collaborated on the music and song content with Mik Parsons recording all the songs on his 4 track cassette based Tascam Portastudio.

The Puffin: rowboat, belongs to Portland Bill. The Kipper: used by Eddy Stone and Inspector Ronaldsway.

The series was narrated by actor of Spooner's Patch and Big Jim and the Figaro Club, Norman Rossington. The show aired on ABC in Australia (10 August 1987 – 28 February 1992). However, whereas two episodes were shown back to back in the UK, each episode was screened individually in Australia. The show was also screened in New Zealand on TV One starting in the same year. In Canada the series aired on Knowledge Network during the late 1980s. Series 1 of the show aired in Greece on the Channel 2 of Hellenic National Television (known as ERT2) in 1984. It was dubbed in Greek. In Iran the series was aired on IRIB dubbed in Persian. Each broadcast and the series 1 episodes that were featured on the VHS releases consisted of two episodes back to back connected by a song. Unfortunately, the songs are not featured on the DVD releases, but one song, 'Eddy's Song' has been uploaded to YouTube. In 2021, one of the show's musicians Mik Parsons uploaded four of the songs to YouTube.