We don’t just write about apps at Apps Playground – despite the name! We’re also keeping tabs on what children are doing in other digital ways, from coding to YouTube and Netflix.

Talking of YouTube… this month, Google’s video service hosted the return of a much-loved character from our own childhoods: Morph. Yes, the stop-motion plasticine fella that used to appear on telly here in the UK with Tony Hart is back, and online.

Its creator, Aardman, published the first in a planned series of new episodes on its official Morph channel on Friday: Twin Decks. It sees Morph and friend Chas (also from the original show) leaping about on a pair of vinyl decks, DJing with their feet.

The video only lasts for a minute and a half, although that matches the length of the original animations, as they ran within shows like Take Hart and Hartbeat:

This is the first of 15 planned episodes, and there’s a tale behind them. Morph’s original creator Peter Lord launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter last November, trying to raise £75,000 to make a new series of 12 episodes. After raising more than £110,000, the number was upped to 15.

“I’m amazed and humbled that even though it has been over 30 years since his birth, the little guy still has such a passionate following on Facebook and YouTube. We’ve had so many people asking for him to make a comeback that I thought it’s about time we start hatching a plan,” wrote Lord at the time.

“I’m very keen on keeping the humour, slapstick and surrealism of the originals, whilst at the same time bringing Morph slightly more in line with the modern world,” he added. Hence the DJ decks in the first episode!

We’re looking forward to seeing what happens next, and whether Morph appeals just to grown-ups who remember his original TV stardom, or can also find a new audience among the children of 2014. And perhaps if he does the latter, there could be fun apps for that at some point…