The Gingerbread Man is a stop motion animated children's television series about a gingerbread man and his friends, who come to life in their kitchen home when the Big Ones are asleep. The series was written by David Wood, adapted from his two-act musical play The Gingerbread Man, which premiered in 1976 at the Towngate Theatre in Basildon, Essex, and went on to great international success. The play is inspired by "The Gingerbread Man", a 19th-century fairy tale.