The Treacle People

A stop motion animated children's television programme

The Treacle People is a stop motion animated children's television programme shown on CITV in the United Kingdom from 3 May 1996 to 25 July 1997 and re run on Channel 4 in the 2000’s. It had 2 series, each with 13 episodes. It was produced by The London Studios for London Weekend Television (Granada Television produced the second series) and Fire Mountain Productions in association with Link Entertainment. In 2023, the series was remastered, with full episodes uploaded on the official Treacle People YouTube Channel.

The concept for the show was created by Bill Dewhurst, a resident of Sabden, Lancashire, who created dolls on which the Treacle People characters were based during a period of unemployment in the 1980's. Dewhurst, together with his wife, son, and two daughters, sold the dolls at craft fairs, before the Dewhurst family developed the show together with a production company. The show, which used stop motion animation, ran for 26 episodes from 1996 to 1997.

The show was written by Brian and Jonathan Trueman (the former of whom was the writer of Danger Mouse) and was based in a fictionalized version of the Northern English village of Sabden, in Pendle, where treacle is (allegedly) a natural resource extracted through mines. However, the mines have run dry from overextraction, and the village may face destruction from a lack of economy. The main characters Bill Wizzle and Rosie use a Treacle finder, similar to a water dowser, to discover a vein of treacle in the abandoned mines which is home to treacle loving creatures called Boggarts. The two series focus on reopening the mines, and problems faced (such as exportation).