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Bagpuss |
Nothing, it would seem, has suffered more at the hands of the lazy retronostalgists than the much-loved childrens' series "Bagpuss". Everywhere you look, the series is being celebrated on a horrendously superificial level. We are surrounded by Bagpuss mobile phone covers, Bagpuss masonry tiles, Bagpuss industrial strength plaster of paris mix and so on ad nauseam. Meanwhile, rarely is an opinion expressed on the series that is any more substantial than "ooh, I remember it, it used to be on", or "aaaaaaah, Bagpuss was cute". All of which masks the fact that this was an incredibly evocative and imaginative piece of animation and deserves to be celebrated as such.
"Bagpuss", in common with all of the series made by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firman, featured a cast of distinctive and thoughtfully-created characters. The care and attention that went into this particular aspect of the series is still evident today, with people continually sharing memories of being frightened by Professor Yaffle, or wondering why Gabriel the Toad croaked "look, look" in the opening titles, when he talked with an ordinary voice in the rest of the programme. Everyone else loves them, but I wasn't that keen on the mice. Even as a kid I used to think it was just the same thing every week with them, while at least with Gabriel and Madeleine they sang about different things all the time. It might have been done deliberately as a way of getting something structured together that young viewers could latch on to, but it didn't really work with me. - Doctor Claire I found the whole thing, as a child and now too, to be a scary experience. It always seemed to me to be a programme about a strange kind of possession of all the things that seemed lifelike in the whole shop, making them come to life by some unexplained force. After the wife recently bought the complete series on VHS for my two year old daughter, I found myself unwillingly going through the whole chilling experience again. Another thing that creeped me out was the music - it reminded me of the "Jolly" stuff the people in The Wicker Man sang along to. Brr. - Jay Newman I had mixed feelings about the mice too - I was genuinely intruiged by the idea of them transforming to and from the state of ornaments on the Mouse Organ, and also used to love the sequence of them operating the 'Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ', but when they were just moving about the set with huge brushes and talking in those annoying high-pitched voices, I just found them a bit twee. - TJ Worthington
Nowadays, it seems you are never more than five minutes away from someone, usually the likes of Kate Thornton and Jamie Theakston, talking about how "Bagpuss" is the best children's television programme ever made. However, as undeniably good as the series may be, few are ever prepared to qualify such statements, and more to the point until a couple of years ago "Bagpuss" was seemingly almost forgotten. I haven't seen the thing for years. I think if I were to watch it now, I'd be disappointed with it. It always was kind of rosey anyway, wasn't it? I'm only 23 and so I don't remember it very well. And I get the feeling that most people who claim to "like, really love" Bagpuss are of a similar age to me and haven't seen the thing for about 15 years either. Students, basically. I bet if there was a band called Bagpuss they'd clean up. - Ciaran Gaynor With regard to viewing the series now, I think it really does depend what level you look at it on. Anyone who comes back to the series because they thought Bagpuss was 'cute' or merely just because they remember that it existed ("oh yeah, Bagpuss, it used to be on!!!" etc), will probably find it somewhat boring in comparison to their hazy childhood memories. Which must be extremely hazy, given the amount of people who seem to ask everyone if they can remember the series every five minutes. If you approach it as a brilliantly-made work of animation with an inventive approach to storytelling, however, you won't be disappointed. - TJ Worthington I recently bought the DVD for my three-year old daughter and it seemed strange. She didn't take to it (maybe in a few months she will) but she saw the "Clangers" disc at the same time and it was an instant hit. My memory has played tricks on me, because now I think "Clangers" is the better of the two... "Bagpuss" has a problem in that it has an unbeatable title sequence (three minutes long - before home VCRs, many programmes had lengthy opening titles) and the rest of the programme has to try and match it. The music is especially of its time - remember your hippy primary school teacher playing folk songs, Toni Arthur on "Play School", your aunty's Joan Baez LPs, or Trev and Simon's "Singing Corner" for that matter. - Andy Durrant
paintbox(a)bluejam20.freeserve.co.uk.
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