I was reading an interview this morning with Andrew Davenport, creator of the Teletubbies and now 'In the night garden" which is receiving a lot of press currently as one of the people who played "Ooo" who happens to be a Tombliboo is suing them for faulty costumes.
Why he is suing now and not back when the show was made is beyond me, and now my son is older I'm a little out of touch with pre-school tv. Naturally Will grew up around the Teletubbies, who in their own right to an adult are rather bizarre, but to a child they represent something else. The thinking behind the tubbies is that if you listen to one its all the basic constructs of speech - ba ba, aa aa, te te etc...the first show to deliberately target that age bracket.
But anyway, in reading about his shows the descriptions of the characters make me howl for some obscure reason (I really must go and have a sit down chat with the voices in my head one day). Lets see, we have :-
Igglepiggle - the main character, big, cuddly and blue with red hair. Inside the costume is apparently some tatted up rocker from Liverpool.
Upsy Daisy - female and of Afro-Caribbean descent, usually chased around the garden by her be and has a catchphrase of "Ooh upsy daisy".
Makka Pakka - a cave dweller fond of cleaning things, especially his other forest friends with soap and sponge that he carries in his cart.
Tombliboos - there are three of them Ooo, Unn and Eee, beat on their drums and their pants fall down regularly.
Truly bizarre. Have a look at this slice of baby heaven :-
In my day it were just sock puppets called the Clangers on tv :-)
Oh and as a disclaimer, when out of your head on morphine in a Hong Kong Hospital the Teletubbies in Cantonese are essential watching.
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...beat on their drums and their pants fall down regularly.
I've had nights in the pub that went a bit like that...
Plus a character who carries around a sponge and washes things and people? Awesome.
I LOVED THE CLANGERS! My mum knitted me a Clanger once from a pattern in the Clangers annual. I now have two mini Clangers that hang in my bedroom because I am odd.
The Poohbah's are in the same vein. When Calvin was little, I sat down with him and we watched the Poohbah's. I absolutely did not get it, but the look on his face indicated that it all made perfect sense to him.
I was amazed.
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