This is wild to watch because as an American, you don't get the cultural subtext around the Britishness or history implied in it (which is fine! Why would you). So Ms Lily is heavily implied to be a refugee from newly-communist Russia after the Tsarist regime: many top prima ballerinas came here to teach ballet in the 1920s and 30s, and were forced to live in relative poverty and isolation. So she's not just someone who 'really likes kids'. Angelina isn't 'really posh': she lives in a little rural cottage with her lower-middle class dad and mum, and attends what is clearly state (not private) school. And a lot of what you read as annoying or arrogant about her is really her anxiety around her class and ability to 'keep up' with what she considers 'elite' people in the industry she loves (the right clothes, the right food, the right activities). So yeah: it's a dumb little mouse show to Americans. But it has some deeper themes for us about belonging and what really matters.

I've really come to appreciate OG Angelina as I've gotten older because I like when main protagonists are allowed to be flawed characters expressing a variety of emotions as opposed to being the "child idol", Angelina in her original incarnation feels like a real person, she can be feisty, overbearing, and even selfish, but her heart is usually in the right place and all she wants to put on a good show. Plus, she's a queen, a literal queen, I stan this ballerina.

THE MEMORIES!!! i've been randomly thinking of this show off and on for the past few years because i kept being confused that i just so happened to watch TWO ballerina mice shows as a kid; turns out one of them was just the 3d show lmao

I think this show is responsible for why I love bows and “coquette” aesthetics so much. Also, the episode where Angelina gets her paw kissed by the celebrity man dancer and she says she will never wash it again lives rent free in my head TO THIS DAY.

Alice and Henry eating candy unlocked a deep seeded memory that I didn't know existed. I can remember like really wanting to eat the candy or being hyper focused on the candy as a child

In preschool, I dressed up for Halloween as “Angelina Ballerina, Fairy Princess on Stage” and had a mouse tail and ears, a ballerina outfit, a princess tiara, and a magic wand.

I grew up with the original show, and it’s probably the reason as to why I simply ADORE the vintage storybook art style!

We only had one kids channel when I was young and I can 100% confirm that my parents *despised* this show. They were so annoyed that the main character was crying in almost every episode, "Angelina Bawlerina" is still a family meme to this day.

When I was a kid, because I was named Angelina, I for some reason thought I also HAD to become a ballerina. I thought I had to be exactly like her, and I saw how annoying she could be and felt personally offended and thought it was not an accurate portrayal of Angelina (me, I thought me and this mouse were one and the same, as if those with the people name have the same life/personality. I had yet to meet anyone with my name) anyways, I signed up for dance class and unfortunately I was not gifted and clearly NOT destined to be a famous dancer, and did not fulfill the ballerina prophecy … anyways, since then my life has been pointless. who is Angelina if not ballerina?

As a little boy, one of my favorite stuffed animals was an Angelina doll! I'm so unbelievably lucky that my parents and especially grandmother encouraged my love of the books and the original cartoon. I think I still have her somewhere, actually. The dress was removable, so I'd dress her up in other large doll clothes and just do that for hours.

i distinctly remember being in a commercial for the angelina reboot with my old dance studio when i was in kindergarten and it was such a core memory for me. 😭 i still have the mouse ear headband and the little tutu i wore. i remember turning on the tv to watch Angelina Ballerina and that ad would almost always be right before the episode 😭 edit: i gotta get through more than half the video before commenting... i'm literally in this video omfg

I love that the original books/ tv show feel respectful to their audience. they're a product of love and effort and don't try to dumb themselves down to be palatable

All I've ever known from this franchise was the 2009 cartoon, and I KNEW I was missing out on context but it was always so confusing because they never *really* explained what the deal was, the feeling you described with Legally Blondes is exactly how I felt with this show

I grew up with the 3D show and all I can remember other than Angelina being a villain was that as a kid I'd try to immitate the way Angelina ran (toe to heel) and it HURT so bad since I ended up just putting all my weight on my toes.

I had this Angelina ballerina magazine subscription when I was a kid. I remember the first two weeks you got an Angelina and an Alice (i always preferred Alice because of her colour combo), and then every week there would be a different fairytale story, and you got a costume, and i used to make them dance the ballet of the story. One of the best toys I had as a kid because i wanted to be a “prima ballerina” 😅 I also had the foldout stage with the figurines so that was so nostalgic to see in this video ❤ love what you do xx

1:05:30 fun fact about this actually- this is pretty much only a thing with childrens media! its so that they dont pick up the "wrong" accent, which does happen since thats when accents are still being solidified (ex- some american kids adopt a british accent if they watch a lot of peppa pig)

As someone who owned a wiggles DVD and has only ever seen Angelina Ballerina in the context of the friends forever trailer, I clicked on this video immediately and was SO EXCITED when you actually brought up the trailers 😁

Before I forget, there is one thing you didn’t mention in the “other media” section of the original Angelina. There was a series of magazines from Angelina ballerina and each issue came with a dress for the doll. I still have all of my magazines, all of the dresses that came with them and my Angelina and Alice dolls as well as the book about her birthday (I can send pictures if you want). I also used to have 2 vhs tapes 1 was the show must go on (with that irl dance instruction segment you mentioned) the other was about a play they were going to do where Angelina would have to hang from a single wire to play a fairy but she was scared of heights, that vhs also contained the boat race and Henry and Angelina on the fair episodes)

Heck yeah, new comfort video for sleeping and drawing just dropped ❤😂 Also, Helen’s reasons for drawing mice are so cute 🥹

ohhhh MAN! i always said my first memory of being definitively gender diverse was when i was a kid was when i told my mom i wanted to be a ballerina astronaut pirate and have a moustache, tutu, eyepatch, and astronaut helmet. i realize now that angelina ballerina was indoctrinating me into the transgender agenda and sending me subliminal messages to take testosterone and be a fuzzy little mouse queen like her. thanks angelina. happy pride

this is the SINGLE video essay/deep dive ive wanted since it became a thing people on youtube started doing. thank you so so so so SOOOO much for doing this 💜💜💜💜💜💜

Angelina Ballerina and Olivia are my two favorite childhood Ballerina shows! Such a random genre but i can truly appreciate the shows looking back on them

I loved this show as a kid! I was five years old when I first watched Angelina Ballerina. Because of the show I went through a ballerina phase; and I even begged my parents for ballet lessons. Sadly, my family couldn't afford ballet lessons. A few years ago I got my little cousin a copy of the first Angelina Ballerina book along with an Angelina plushy for Christmas one year. My little cousin loved the book and the doll.

This show had a larger impact on my childhood than I remembered! I watched a lot of the DVDs and VHS tapes from my public library when I was little, had plush dolls of Angelina and Alice, as well as a toy set with plastic figures of all of the mice. This franchise, as well as animated movies like The Rescuers, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (the Rankin/Bass version), The Secret of NIHM, and Ernest and Celestine have made me fall in love with media that feature tiny mice living in their own little tiny, human-like worlds. The episode I have the most memories about is the one where Angelina finds a lucky penny and drops it while watching a performance, as well as the one where Angelina tries to get the tickets for the ballet and keeps failing until her father gives her the press tickets.

i’m from the uk and i watched the original angelina ballerina stage performance by the english national ballet! it was the first production i’d ever seen as a child so it was very memorable. i had quite a few of the books, including the stage pop-up book you showed (i wish i still had it!), and watched both of the tv series. i was super into angelina ballerina because i started ballet at age 3, which was about the time when the first tv series aired, and am still doing it as a hobby to this day at age 22. i really appreciated this video!

The Maggie Bateson pop up books!!! This just lit up major childhood memories. Pop up dollhouses used to be my and my sister's favorite thing, specially for me because sensorily I always liked the touch of cardboard better than the repurposed wood of our actual dollhouse. But I'll say its probably not a good idea to give children something that's as fragile as paper to play dolls with, all my pop ups are all taped up and folded over as well. (Also they were such a statement on children's literature in the 2000s i think you could do a video on them)

I would probably not have known about Angelina Ballerina had it not been for a certain DVD we had which featured two episodes of like 3 or 4 other shows. There was one episode were Angelina is worried that the picture frame she made herself won’t be a good enough Christmas present for Miss Lily, so she tries to earn enough money to buy her a fancy hat instead but by the time she has enough money, someone else already bought the house, so Angelina feels really ashamed at the Christmas party but then Miss Lily opens her gift and is absolutely thrilled at the picture frame. There was also one episode were Angelina is chosen to dance at the castle and most of the episode is her and Miss Lily struggling to get there. They made such a big deal about it, I didn’t realize that there were so many episodes were the royal family came to see them dance.

oh my gosh perfect timing, i just named a pokemon after this and never saw much of this show. time to get educated on it!

Omg the memories this unlocked... 💚😭💚 I must have been SO young because even with this, I don't remember the specifics. I recognise the characters, but not the show, I recognise the pop-up book, but not the colours and details. I cannot believe this has just been locked in my brain since I was a toddler.

SO nostalgic omg 🥹 me and my siblings had the cottage playset, some pieces for the stage playset, and most of the plush dolls. I think I still have Angelina, Alice, and Polly. I also had a book of Angelina Christmas recipes and crafts. I distinctly remember being unhappy with the 2009 reboot. My sister was pissed because Angelina didn’t dance en pointe.

When I was little, and attending ballet classes, I had this light-up Angelina Ballerina conjoined top and tutu set which would play the theme to the original show and had Angelina’s face (in the old art style) on it. I used to go into my classes and show everyone what it could do, proudly displaying my love for the show and it’s main character. This video has brought back so many fond memories, thank you!

So excited for this deep dive! The fond memories I have of going to the public library and checking out Angelina Ballerina books and DVDs - so much nostalgia! 💛

ily sm you make working on all my ridiculous projects so much fun

My two year old loves Angelina Ballerina! I just happened to find a DVD set at my local grocery store for $5, bought it for her and she wants to watch it all the time. It's a very cozy, calm show.

Multiple dubs for different dialects in the same language happens more often then you might think. I live in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium and before 2015 we used to have our own dubs for various international cartoons while the Dutch had their own dubs (since 2015 they are trying cast people from both countries to make 1 dub but it doesn’t always sound right), this also happens to French a lot (European French dub vs Canadian French dub vs African French dub), Portugese (European Portuguese vs Brazilian Portugese), Spanish (European Spanish vs Latin American Spanish), Russian (mainland Russian vs Ukrainian Russian vs broader former Yugoslavian Russian), German (mainland german vs Austrian German vs Swiss German) and yes even English. Winx club is the most notorious example but in that case it wasn’t dialect related but distribution rights related so in English you had the 4kids dub, the Nickelodeon dub, the Cinelume or RAI English dub (Singapore English) and then there was an Australian dub as well I think? This has even happened to documentaries, walking with dinosaurs and walking with beasts for example had the original British dub narrated by Keneth Branagh but for the USA (and I assume Canada as well) they had a different narrator and after that yet an other version was made with a different narrator. These kinds of dubs happen because often one dialect has words that people who speak the other dialect cant understand or don’t have in their dialect or because a word that is innocent in one dialect can be a profanity or slang term in the other (for example in Dutch the word “poepen” means “to poop” but in Flemish it’s slang for “having s3x”, there is also a word in one dialect of Portuguese that is completely generic but in the other dialect it’s slang for gay men. For an other example in European Portuguese the word “tarado” means “crazy man” but in Brazilian Portuguese it means “a man who views women as s3x objects and can’t keep his hands to himself”)

I thought I hadn't watched the original Angelina Ballerina TV show but some of those clips definitely awakened some memories in me. I loved the book and had a playset as a kid since I did ballet classes and my mom is a former ballerina

"i hope your chores or art or video game are going well" you know us so well lmao

OH MY GOD. YES, PLEASE. I was in high school when this started showing on PBS but it was so pretty and charming, I fell in love. I despise the reboot. The music and watercolor backgrounds are untouchable.

Angelina ballerina the original show is the reason I was a ballerina for eight years 😭

I got introduced to this series but the reboot they would do a lot of rerun on pbs kids and honestly I enjoyed it and I didn’t know it was a reboot

AAA! I am so glad people are talking about the original show as it was the one i grew up with! I always loved the characters and art style. So, when my cousin showed me the 3d one i was so confused lol.

I was crazy about Angelina Ballerina as a little girl in the 90's!! My sisters and I all loved to dance, so it was easy to fall in love with a mouse that loved to dance. I received several of the books as presents and the gorgeous box that housed an Angelina doll, her friend Alice, little Henry and a lot of their costumes! I refused to let my mother get rid of them when I was in high school and later going off to college. I still have that box of toys and many of the books from my childhood. Thank you for this lovely trip into the making my favorite childhood books!

HOLY CRAP!!! I was not expecting such a deep dive into a nostalgic tv show I remember watching so vividly!!! P.S: Alice was always my fav-

as someone who made a book with pop up elements for a thesis project, that book is insane!!! The artists who worked on it are incredibly talented and im glad its getting appreciation, goddamn

The way I audibly just said Oh HELL yes when I saw this video

Love your video! Had all the books as a kid and my first magazine subscription was to the Angelina Ballerina Fairytales Magazine! Anyone else remember them? They came with soft toys characters and each edition came with clothes for the toys.

Wow Helen’s art is amazing 🤩 I didn’t grow up with this character but it’s so cozy! Ah, to draw for children’s books, the dream ❤

Oh my god, that candy scene is burned into my memory! I'm glad I'm not the only one!

yours are rarely a background video for me !! they are like my comfort videos and make me feel happy and chill 😊 please make another american girl doll video !🩷🩷

I am proud to say that Angelina Ballerina is one of the reasons I wanted to start ballet and still do it to this day as a career! Ty for making this deep dive! 💖💖

Sarah - this is EVERYTHING!!! thank you sooo much for this masterpiece

LOVED this video! Angelina Ballerina is one of those shows that I didn't remember much about beyond the art style. Thank you for making this!! 💖

I still have one of my Angelina Ballerina books from when I was little. She shaped my childhood and honestly still impacts me now as an adult. I still love ballet, classical music, British programming, and antique furniture. It’s cool to see how things from your childhood affect your adulthood. Thanks for the wonderful video 💜

In America in the mid-2000s PBS would play Little Stars as like a segment between episodes of Angelina Ballerina

I hope you’re ok! Literally any time I see an upload from you I get so excited

I absolutely ADORED Angelina Ballerina! I was 10 and my older sister was 13 but we watched it everyday almost religiously. We would rent some dvds from the library to see some if the more hard to find specials (lowkey still sing that Priscilla song to this day lmaooo). Henry and Alice were my favorite characters, but I also loved the Pinkpaw twins too! The episode I remember the most is The Lucky Penny. I was so disappointed with Next Steps- I wanted all of my old faves back so I didn’t watch past the first three episodes...I still say 'oh crumbs' lol

30 seconds in and I know this is gonna explode in views, subscribedd!!

The plot of Angelina and the Princess kinda happened with my friend, except he wasn't the understudy. My friend was cast as the main character in a local production of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert: The Musical. Months of practice and during dress rehearsal, after getting out of the massive platform shoes he'd just been dancing on a bar top in, he trips over a bump in a carpet and damages the ligaments in his leg. His understudy had to step in with four days notice! His understudy did a great job but, given the standing ovation they got both nights I went, it hurt my friend wasn't up on that stage getting the applause he deserved. The show was so good!

This was my childhood. I loved everything about the show and even got some of the books, either for my birthday or for Christmas, I love that you made a whole deep dive about the characters that I have grown up with.

omg congratulations on your degree!! I also hope you feel better soon, amazing video

I LOVED Angelina Ballerina as a kid. My favourite thing I owned was a book full of letters and it told a story through the different letters and they came out of the envelopes so you could actually read them. I'm sure I still have it at my parents' house. You've really made me want to rewatch the original series again!

CANT WAIT TO WATCHH

omgggg i love angelina ballerina so much! i rediscovered it on hulu a few years ago and i was so happy. i took ballet for about 5 or 6 years, and i initially started it because of angelina and barbie in the 12 dancing princesses. the music and the art style is so beautiful and nostalgic, thank you for this video!! i loved it

omg, I loved Angelina Ballerina growing up. Angelina's star performance was the first live show I saw and I still have the DVD today. Thank you for making this, such a great watch.

omg you just unlocked new memories. i finally realized why i drew so many ballerinas as a kid

Sarah, you remind me of a nice and funny English teacher that i look forward to having the class to. Im always so happy when u post, it feels like christmas!

I loved this show so much:(💗 The illustrations are beautiful too.

omg side note i love your rainbow/shadow high collection in the background 🥰

this video is soo well made thank you so much!! i read the books and watched the next steps as a kid and enjoyed them a lot!!

Congrats on the degree! I had an Angelina DVD as a little kid, there's something about the voice acting in the og show that's so calming

Just seeing these images gives me so much nostlagia. Hearing you talk about the episodes bring up so many memories I didn't know I had, *especially* that beat episode.

I’ve been thinking for ages that someone needed to do a video like this about Angelina omg

59:23 my art is going lovely~! thank you for keeping me company by talking about my favorite childhood book series

I was pretty much aged out by the time that the show happened (I'm not even aware what channel it aired on), but I loved the books. The illustrations were gorgeous and I'd admire every little detail; Helen was right to be so consistent because I examined the details of Angelina's cottage and I could picture it vividly. My childhood books were lent to me by my aunt (the out-of-print period of time tracks) so I put it on my wishlist and my English boyfriend gifted me a copy; absolutely loved it all over again. I'm hoping to collect some of my favorites. I do remember the AG line too. That was a weird choice. I did love the look of them but I was too dedicated to getting Felicity's wardrobe to ask for any of it. Child me didnt realize they sold the books, I might have asked for my own copies.

I don't know why, but I watched this whole thing. Excellent work Sarah.

Wow! Thanks for all the hard work put into making this video! As a kid growing up in the naughties I remember watching both versions of the tv show on tv (although I watched the Dutch dub and I was surprised to hear them have a British accent in this video lol). I forgot about a lot of the characters, but this video brought back so many memories!

Love Angelina Ballerina! I grew up watching the 3D version of Angelina and I love it when they introduce real dancers in shining stars at the end of the show.

This video was made for me, thank you for making it

i audibly GASPED when i saw this video u dont know how much this means to me. angelina ballerina was my SHIT when i was a kid n i still fall asleep to it to this day bc of the asmr voice acting n the classical music n i've been watching SO many video essays recently so u hit ur target audience. i havent even watched it yet but thank you. thank you for ur service.

The only exposure I ever had to Angelina Ballerina was The Next Steps on PBS kids when I was little. I don't remember caring for it very much (I really only watched it bc I liked the shows that were on before & after) but it was alright. I was never really into dance as a kid, so those parts really went over my head, but the storylines outside of that were decent

Angelina Ballerina was such a comfort for me as a child, and I'm revisiting it as an adult :) I love my comfort things so much, I always worry learning more about them might ruin them for me.. So your video was really well done and handled something special to me with a lot of care. Thank you for that

I completely forgot about Angelina ballerina thank you so much for bringing it back and my memories I’m so glad this came onto my for you page!

Omg FINALLY an Angelina ballerina video. You beat me to it!

This was a fascinating deep dive. I like a few episodes of Angelina ballerina however I had no idea there was so much to this show.

oh my god how could i forget :0 entering my 20’s soon, unlocked memory

im locked in babes

My mom got me so many of these movies and books when I was a little girl and took ballet for like 4 years. It’s a stark memory and a pretty good one, honestly.

Ex ballerina here. I was a casual fan of Angelina Ballerina during the “next steps” era. I didn’t start ballet because of the show. In fact I stuck with it because watching the characters be so passionate about dance encouraged me to keep learning. After 9 years, I chose to quit ballet. I will always love ballet and I appreciate the discipline and strength it taught me. I still dance but I do way more than ballet now. Ballet may have been my first love in terms of dance but contemporary dance is my soulmate.

AHH THIS BROUGHT BACK SO MANY MEMORIES!!! i saw the big audition ballet as a kid but I was so young i entirely forgot about it until now TwT i watched both iterations of the cartoon as well - at first I thought that I only watched the next steps since I remembered that a bit more clearly, but seeing the clips of the original brought everything flooding back :')

Ah, my little two year stint in ballet class as a child started with the 3D show… There was a period in primary school where I was physically incapable of drawing people without mouse ears! I have such good memories of the show, though, and I didn’t even know there were books until now. P.S., totally unrelated, but your hair is to die for. I think I found my next dye color!

thank you for unlocking a very important part of my childhood

Congrats on the degree! I just got mine too haha. What a wonderful accomplishment!

the Angelina ballet show was the first theatre performance I ever went to see :) very very nostalgic for me

I remember seeing Angelina ballerina stuffed dolls in the American Girl catalog in the early 2000s with the books and clothes and assccories for the stuffed dolls.

Thanks for this video, I remember Angelina from her AG days. Also bc I love to play "spot who I've also got" with doll collections in the background: Abbey, Venus, Zooey, Vanessa, Lila, Josefina, Felicity 💕

this is bringing back so many memories!!♥️♥️

I grew up on the books and next steps and loved the show, I was a very bossy kid like Angelina and when watching the show would act out everything she did and made my little sister play every other character. I vividly remember having the book Angelina and the royal wedding and an Angelina ballerina annual. I also remember meeting Angelina outside Tesco with my grandma

You’ve unlocked several memories including that CD

I WAS LITERALLY WATCHING IT YESTERDAY. my fav kids series ever.

Angelina at the Fair (the book version especially) was one of my go to's as a kid. Funnily enough, I think I relate to Henry the most in the sense that I'm not really the type to go on rides. I recently rewatched some of the episodes to relive my childhood and I actually really enjoyed it! For some reason I'm now kind of drawing similarities between the OG show and the animated series of Anne of Green Gables. Great video!