My 2-year old daughter is obsessed with 'tubbies, so I find myself watching them often. What the hell is going on? You have these brightly colored cyborg thingies living in an underground house they clearly didn’t construct. They have a Noonoo trailing around after them cleaning up their messes. A somewhat sinister loudspeaker that pops up everywhere telling them what to do. Frankly, I’m confused. The best I can come up with is that they are apparently part of some type of morlock/eloi symbiosis. Who built the house? Who is at the other end of that loudspeaker? What the hell is going on?
I’ve said it before o these Boards –
The Teletubbies are the Eloi fro m H.G. Wells The Time Machine – they live in an eternal Eden above ground whil all th grunt work is done for them by the unseen Morlocks underground (and presumably by machins like he Noo-Noo). They are fed “Tubby Custard” by the unseen Morlocks, and spend their lives in perpetual childhood.
All H.G. left out was the fact that the Eloi were tubby little bright-colored antenna-bearing figures.He left you thinking that they were sexy little creatures, like Yvette Mimieux. Thi is why Rod Taylor couldn’t tell Sebastian Cabot more about them.
It helps f you recall that, in Wells’ original book, the Morlock were the descendants of the worker class, and th Eloi were the logical outcome of a do-nothing upper class. The Morlocks ate the Eloi. I always thought it made the Teletubbies more palatable to think that they ended up as Tinky-Wink roasts and La-La Chops.
My take on it–
Teletubbies live the life of a toddler. They don’t know where things come from, they just appear. They play all day, and everything is new. They make messes all the time, and someone cleans them up. Mysterious grownup voices explain things, or tell them to do things, and they have no idea why, it’s just how things happen. One that particularly rang “true” for me was the episode where the narrator announces, “One day, all of the Teletubbies were feeling very tired.” No, the teletubbies all say, not tired. “So they decided to take a nap.” They lay down for a nap, protesting, and one by one they sneak out of their beds and play. Hell, that’s practically a documentary. No wonder little kids can identify with them!
I agree, though, it’s all kind of surreal if you’re not two. It is, however, and somewhat oddly, one of the few kids shows I can watch without being overcome by the urge to vomit.
This is the sort of thing that makes me regret that I could never get into getting stoned. I think the Teletubbies would probably look awesome under some illegal medication.
As an aside, my favorite episode is one of the ones on tape where they sing a bunch of different songs. I get a kick out of “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” every time I see it. They go all over England (I presume) and have different grown-ups singing. The policeman, the soccer team, and the fire department were clearly really into it. Teletubbies is an oddly soothing show and, in contrast to Barney or Elmo, I don’t mind watching it.
You forgot to mention the star-child.
I would have to agree 100%. They even SOUND like babies.
I thought that the sun baby was their god, and the teletubies all follow the instructions of the loud speakers to please him.
If you think teletubies is surreal, you should see Tiny Planets!
Don’t know how to do links, but there is a website for it.
Bren, your take is absolutely spot-on. It really is the world as seen through a toddler’s eyes. I’ve noticed this particularly in the stress on repetition–no matter how silly or simple the task is, they’re completely fascinated with it and insist on repeating it. No matter how stupid the video is, they demand that it be replayed. Anyone who’s spent a long, mind-numbing afternoon entertaining a toddler doing the same thing over and over again knows how true that aspect of the show is.
The toddler-perspective is also why it’s perfectly normal for Tinky-Winky (ostensibly a boy) to carry around a bright red handbag–for the youngest children, toys aren’t divided along strictly gendered lines. I find evidence of this in personal experience: when i was about 2 or 3, i used to carry around a baby doll despite being a boy. I actually have some very dim memories of this, and also some faded photographs. Actually, it was a doll’s head, not the whole doll. OK, that may sound like creepy and potentially psychotic behavior, but i was a baby then, and i’ve turned out OK since then. I think.
They scare me. Really. My niece used to try to comfort me when they appeared on TV, but I’m inconsolable. They freak me out.
Watch Out! It’s another terrorist plot!
The Teletubbies have a lot going on in the form of subtext.
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The sun/God is a giant infant who communicates to the tubbies and causes a giant pinwheel to come out of the ground and distribute LSD (or some similar chemichal) to the entire land. Once dosed the tubbies hallucinate movies on their stomachs.
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They consume nothing but pudding and toast, which is representative of the mainstay of heroin addicts “ensure” or similar producs which contain a large nutrient load in an easily consumed form, while the toast is easy on the stomach as most opiate addicts have weak stomachs.
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The tubbies speak baby gibberish. They are capable of communicating to infants in their own language. A language you are not likely to understand yourself. This begs the question “What are the Teletubbies telling our children?”.
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They have an automated vaccuum cleaner because like all drug addicts (except early stage speed freaks) they are messy and unable to clean up after themselves.
There is more there but you have to discover it for yourself.
Watch out of the tall, purplish one with the upside down triangle antenna and red purse. There are some ugly rumors about him! :eek:
My first reaction to reading the thread title was “NO!”, but apparently I was wrong.
The first time I ever saw the Teletubbies I was home from work sick with the flu and a fever of 103. I woke up from that groggy sick sleep you fall into when you think you should get out of bed and you drag yourself into the livingroom only to fall into a snotfilled crazy sleep. I opened my eyes and honestly thought I was hallucinating.
The sun, he’s laughing. Haha. Ooooh, string! Yay string! Look at the ice skaters. Again. Look at the ice skaters. Again. Look at the ice skaters. . .
My reaction was “this thing gives you half an hour of peace and quiet and you want an explanation? Do you always look gift horses in the mouth?” 
AGAIN! AGAIN!
Oh yeah! I am so with you on this! Sure, I don’t think the TV should be used as a baby sitter or in lieu of mind expanding stimulation, but there are times you just have to sit the little fellow down for a dose of audio-visual kiddie valium and say “Thank god we have the Teletubbies and Wiggles on DVD”.
That said, like CalMeacham, the Morlock / Eloi thing had not escaped me… well that and odd overtones of the old british scifi series The Prisoner… the phones particularly remind me of that show.
Teletubbies is not supposed to make sense. It’s zen television, where things just happen. 
Your need to impose “meaning” on Teletubbies is a sign of your Western-trained mind trying to assert itself.
I’m no expert on Teletubbies, but I’m pretty sure Po is evil.
And there’s no question that Tinky Winky plays for the other team, if you get my drift.
That only leaves La-La. La-La is our only hope.
(Watched WAY too much of it while my daughter was growing out of infancy)