Keith Chapman

Keith Vincent Chapman (born 1 December 1958) is a British television writer and producer, known for creating various children's television programmes, most notably Bob the Builder and Paw Patrol.

Early life Chapman originates from Norfolk, East Anglia, though some of his formative years were spent in Basildon, Essex where he went to Nicholas Comprehensive School. He attended art college at Great Yarmouth College of Art and Design in Great Yarmouth.

Career He worked for Jim Henson International, designing characters related to the Muppets, before leaving to pursue a career in advertising.

While freelancing as an agency art director in the early 1990s, Chapman worked on his own creations, one of them being Bob the Builder, who was created after he spotted a JCB backhoe loader on a work site and thought they could bring it to life with cartoon eyes, which became the character Scoop (then named "Digger"), followed by other machines, and then thought the machines needed a human operator, which led to the creation of Bob, eventually showing it and his other creations to Peter Orton, executive chairman of HIT Entertainment, premiering on Netflix in September of the same year.

In 2022, Chapman partnered with MXT to create an NFT project called Moonie Moo.

Personal life Chapman resides in Monaco. His son William is the co-founder of kid's clothing brand Roarsome.