Maya is an amazing programme, and the fortunate thing is that students get the programme, for household use, either free or at vastly reduced prices. My son is at Paisley Uni (formerly Paisley Tech, no less) and they use Maya as their basic toolkit for all the animation. I have watched him for hours at a time and it seems to be a fairly user friendly programme, but the best thing of all is the people on you-tube who go through the process of creating all sorts of things...what a teaching tool.
In his last year, they move onto Mudbox, another pro programme. Again I've watched some you-tube stuff and it's even more amazing, well worth 20mins if you've got them spare. The only drawback of all this, is that daddy is now being sucked-up to in the hope of upgrading an already high-end pc to something of the type that could not only launch the next mars probe, but also defend Millport from Russian Invasion whilst still being able to download the next series of Game of Thrones before it's even released.
Technology...what a wonderful thing.
(I still love my Rhubarb and Custard animation, mind you).
PS. You worked on Dangermouse? Please accept some hero worship...what a cartoon.