Even though Mark Twain originally wrote the books The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as separate units, Huckleberry Finn And His Friends, the amazing series on Canadian television, conjures up both literary works as a single story. Therefore, it places greater importance on Huckleberry's character without putting aside Tom Sawyer's.
Various sternwheeler riverboats appear in the series. The Julia Belle Swain appears in the opening and closing credits, and are the only scenes that were shot on the Mississippi River.
The wooden steam-powered sternwheeler in episode 6 - How nice to be missed - and 7 - Such a lovely funeral - is the "Samson V".[2] The "Samson V" is now a museum but at the time (1979) was a working snagpuller on the Fraser River. The small sternwheeler in episode 10 - Huck is a hero - was one of an identical pair of boats built in 1964 that ferried tourists around Vancouver's harbour from the 1960s to the 1980s.[3] From the late 1980s until 1999, the "Scenic Bell" and the "Scenic Queen" ferried passengers to Newcastle Island Marine Provincial Park.[4]
Broadcast
The series was broadcast in the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, Canada, South Africa Israel, and various as Latin America
countries.
In the United Kingdom, it was first screened on BBC1 in 1982. It was repeated in 1984.
Home media
In 2007, the complete series was released as a 4 DVD box set by Fabulous Films in the UK. It contains many extras including a 12-page colour booklet and a 30-minute 'making of' documentary featuring interviews with many stars of the series including Sammy Snyders, Ian Tracey, and Blu Mankuma.
