Escape of the Artful Dodger was an Australian children’s television series first screened on the Nine Network in 2001. Escape of the Artful Dodger is the story of Jack Dawkins, who was introduced in the classic Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. The Artful Dodger is a fast-talking, nimble-fingered young pick-pocket in London, whose voyage to Australia presents an opportunity to escape from his old life of being a crook, to become a hero.

The worlds of journalism and politics collide in this story about an experienced journalist who desperately needs to scoop a big story in order to revamp his career. Deciding he'll take matters into his own hands, he frames a politician and arranges to be there when the story is leaked to the public. What he doesn't realize is that his own devious behavior is about to get him caught in the middle of a dangerous web of lies and murder.

Set against the conditions leading up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, French doctor Alexandre Manette serves an 18-year imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris, followed by his release to live in London with the daughter he has never met.

Simone Buchanan plays a young camera fanatic who is marooned on a desert island. Here she is threatened by a refugee from South America (Henri Szeps) who isn't keen on having his whereabouts known. Hostility melts into friendship before the rescue boats arrive.

Fat middle aged 24/7 drunkard Les Patterson represents Australia at the UN where his fart literally incinerates an Arab ambassador. Patterson is reassigned to the Middle East so he can be tortured to death by the country he insulted. Patterson's arrival is the prefect distract of a coup and he is spared. At a bar Patterson meets a bio weapons scientist who's developed a horrific disease for the KGB whom plan to distribute it to the Pentagon via toilet seats. Patterson of course is far too drunk to understand anything happening and teams up with Dane Edna to save the world.