BREAKING NEWS Mummy Pig's having a...! Pregnant swine reveals her piglet's gender as Peppa Pig and family go the whole hog with huge party at iconic London landmark
Peppa Pig fans will be squealing with delight after a huge gender reveal party at London's Battersea Power Station has spilled some big news for the Pig family.
After Mummy Pig broke the internet back in February when she revealed live on Good Morning Britain that she is pregnant with her third piglet, the family have gone all out for their gender reveal announcement.
As the sun sets later today the Battersea Power Station chimneys will light up pink to reveal Mummy and Daddy Pig are expecting a baby girl - a little sister for Peppa, four and George, two.
Mummy Pig, whose job involves doing 'very important work' on her computer, and her husband Daddy Pig, who 'takes big numbers, transmutes them and calculates their load-bearing tangents', first announced their surprise pregnancy in February.
Good Morning Britain 's showbiz correspondent Richard Arnold landed the exclusive, as Mummy Pig showed off her ultrasound and baby bump and revealed she was due in the summer.
The global smash hit cartoon celebrated the gender reveal news with a VIP party at the world's first-ever permanent Peppa Pig store at Battersea on Friday, featuring fundraising in support of NCT, the UK's leading charity for pregnancy and parents.
NCT (National Children's Trust) was announced earlier this month as the official 'Pregnancy and Parenting Charity Partner' for Peppa Pig in the UK
And the excitement doesn't stop there as fans can join the Pig family on the big screen with Peppa Meets the Baby, a brand-new cinema experience launching May 30 in over 2,600 cinemas across 19 countries.
The hour-long, song-filled screening features 10 brand-new episodes, as Peppa and George prepare for the arrival of their baby sister.
In addition, the gender reveal episode will air on YouTube on May 3 as part of the Peppa Pig Tales series.
Peppa Pig first aired in 2004 and has since been broadcast in 180 territories and translated into 40 languages. It's spawned books, toys and even two theme parks, with the global Peppa empire now worth over £1billion.
Creators Neville Astley and Mark Baker admitted they were worried the idea would never get off the ground, and that people were initially bored of the idea.
People in the pub would ask us, 'What are you drawing?' We'd say, 'A pig, called Peppa, it's going to be big.' They'd lose interest and wander off', explained Astley.
The pair created Peppa and her family working in each other's houses or at the local pub.
They told the Radio Times they were inspired by 1970s cartoon classics including Roobarb and Pingu, after realising that children 'like stories about animals'.
We'd made this little trailer for Peppa but hadn't got anywhere,' recalled Baker.
'It's very difficult to sell your own creative work. The good thing about Phil is he's quite thick-skinned.'
They soon found an energetic little girl, Lily Snowden-Fine, to voice Peppa - despite her being only four years-old and unable to read, instead repeating lines spoken by her mother.
When her family moved to Canada, the job went to Cecily Bloom, followed by current incumbent Harley Bird.
The creators explained that the secret to Peppa's long-lasting appeal is the show's simplicity, as well as ensuring the piglet is never the butt of the jokes.
'We put a lot of work into making everything look as effortless as possible, said Baker.
'We can laugh at the adults, but children don't like it if we laugh at the children in the show.'
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