Where did the Tellytubbies come from?
I’m not asking who created the TV series, but rather what sort of beings are they supposed to be?
The first time I saw the programme, I assumed that they were aliens and that their home was the earthed-up remains of a crashed flying saucer.
I’ve tried Googling, but I can’t find anything.
I suppose I’m really asking:
What inspired the series creators to dream up the Tellytubbies?
my crackpot theory:
I read somewhere that the tellytubbies are an idea which was born out of a marketing experiment. Think about it. They’re completely generic. They appeal to all races and cultures equally because they have no racial or cultural distinctions. The only spoken text comes from a narator, so voiceovers are very easily done. The part of the show where children are screaminga and waving at the camera are easily replaced with other (cheap) footage of other kids screaming and waving.
In other words, it’s a producer’s wet dream. Transporting the show to different cuntries is very easy, so the potential market for the show is huge. And lets not forget the merchandising possibilities. Can you say mega-bucks?
It is also a fairly cheap show to buy, so it can be aired for long times in cheap timeslots. all in all, pretty damned brilliant if you ask me.
(that was my crackpot theory)
Aha! The guilty blokes confess in this FAQ:
http://www.ragdoll.co.uk/nonflash/teletubbies/progr_teletubbies1.html
Also, from America’s PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/whatson/press/fall/teletubbies.html
I’ve said it before a long time ago:
Telletubbies are obviously the Eloi from H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine.
They live in a virtual paradise above ground, with no cares or worries. Their food is provided for them by unseen underground dwellers. They don’t even do their own maintenance.
It’s a good theory, if only because it makes them bearable. Somehow I am buoyed by the thought that Tinky Winky will eventually end up as a suckling roast (the Morlocks ate the Eloi in the novel – the ultimate case of “Eat the Rich”). It explains that pear-like Teletubby shape.
It also explains why Rod Taylor wouldn’t tell Sebastian Cabot more about Weena and the other Eloi. Mr. French clearly got the idea that Weena looked like Yvette Mimieux, not realizing that Taylor clearly had a plushie fetish.
In other words, they’re toddlers.
Okay, so most toddlers don’t get food deliveries from underground. But if you think about it, most of the kids who watch the show live in a world where food is given to them, they do no maintenance, they don’t understand why things happen the way they do. Grownups say and do things that are mysterious, things arrive and depart without any real reason tiny kids can see. Having two small kids, I’ve seen a lot of Teletubbies, and I’ve come to the conclusion that, aside from their looks, which somehow appeals powerfully to small children, they live in a world that’s sort of a metaphor for their own, and toddlers can identify with it.
Maybe my mind has been warped, but I really don’t mind the Teletubbies. I do, however, despise Barney, Dragon Tales, and Clifford the Big Red Dog. Can’t explain why, either–they just make me want to throw things.
I think Cafe Society is a better place for this, so I’ll be moving it shortly.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
BTW, those damn little things give me the creeps. Even so, they’re not nearly as creepy as Jerry Falwell.
No racial distinction among the Teletubbies? Not so! Dipsy is darker than the others, and he’s the only one with any rythym! A disturbing racial stereotype on children’s programming? God forbid!
Ok, I know, that came out of a heated discussion of the Teletubbies among a group of parents. It also touched on Tinky Winky being gay (can’t be, even with the purse, a gay man would never wear purple and red together) and a bunch of other things.
The sun/baby head freaks some people out, but my son loves it.
A thread a while back talked about this very subject, and someone pointed out that the Teletubbies looks like toddlers in footie sleepers wearing diapers underneath. Well, except for the antennae…
and puk? Hate to blow your theory, but I have a feeling that the show is very expensive for stations to buy because it’s so popular (and there ain’t no such thing as a cheap timeslot in this day & age). A favorite show of mine on public television, Eastenders, is not a really popular show, but costs the station about $30,000 per episode. Also, there is spoken dialog in each episode, besides that spoken by a narrator.
Still, it is manna for kids everywhere, which makes it manna for parents too.
The Little Lagomorph has recently come down with a severe case of Teletubbie love.
There was an episode of Star Trek:TNG where Riker, Data and one other crew member, either Worf or Geordi end up in this fake hotel that had been constructed by an unknown alien intelligence as a habitat for an Earth astronaut who had crashed on the planet years earlier. The aliens had apparently constructed the hotel based on a book that was on the astronauts spaceship, a cheap novel about a casino hotel with two dimensional characters, hokey dialogue, a simplistic plot, etc. The aliens apparently thought they were doing the astronaut a favor, but instead they condemned him to dying of old age in this artificial Hell.
Why do I bring this up?
Think of yourself stuck in Teletubbie land. You have crash landed there, with no hope of ever leaving. You have food and water (apparently) and a benign climate. You have these four humanoid characters you can barely communicate with. And nothing to do for the next 30, 40, 50 years of your life except ride the scooter, play with the ball…
Scary, isn’t it?
I would have to kill them. I would probably start with the big one, then work my way down. Then it would just be me, Noo-Noo (sp?) and the rabbits. That, I could deal with.
do you happen to have a link?
Ahmen to that.
I don’t knoe about the cheap timeslot thingie. I allways thought that the primetime slot was a lot more expensive that the 9-11 am slot in terms of advertising. And lets be honest, advertisers determine the content of a station. (the exeption is obviously the BBC)
eastenders is a soap which I thought only played in the UK. Whereabouts are you? Still, $30,000 an episode is a lot less than what a network has to pay for oh, say, a Friends episode.
You are right though, Teletubbies probably isn’t cheap, and a network will have to pay through the nose for every single episode.
Dipsy’s face is darker than the others’, it’s true, but Laa-Laa is the best dancer. My wife and I have discussed this at some great length, believe me.
puk, it was an old Pit thread. Here it is-
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=57873
Sue Duhnym pointed out the toddler resemblence, I think.
Eastenders plays all over the US, on various PBS stations. A google search should give you a web site for the various schedules and stations, as well as where on the space-time continuum the show is in your area. In SoCal, on KOCE channel 50, we are six years behind the UK…
But Pipeliner, Laa Laa can’t breakdance, can she? Hmmmmmmm?
You cannont know how much I want to see that episode.
The comic strip Robotman (now known as “Monty”) had a pretty funny sequence about the Teletubbies a while back. The gist of it is that they’re invaders from outer space who are using television to turn the next generation’s mind to mush so they can conquer Earth and have Earth rabbits for food. It turned out that Mr. Rogers was the king of the Teletubbies.
I really wish there were more books collecting that strip.
[Lenny voice]
“Tell me again about the rabbits, George.”
[/Lenny voice]