The most beautiful programme ever made...
Posted by Patrick Crowther on 12 October 2008 - 6:56pm.
This is a lesson in how to present profound ideas to children in the most charming and accessible way. Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin, thank you for creating something of genuine, enduring beauty...
Enjoy...
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The Clangers discover democracy
Here's a short clip from the rarely seen 1974 Clangers Election Special, "Vote for Froglet!":
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/clangers/clangers_v4.shtml
The Master from "Doctor Who" is a celebrity fan:
The album's charming too: http://tinyurl.com/4x4c4d
In a former life as a press officer...
I did the press and promotion for the Clangers CD!
Highlight for me was leaving Clanger noises on Terry Wogan's answerphone... never played it though...
10/10 in the NME as I recall, with the line 'The Clangers - The best new band in Britain.'
Went to a talk given by
Peter and Oliver a few years ago at the NFT where they explained how they made the shows and bought along the original Basil Brush puppet, some Clangers, Noggin The Nog cut outs and naturally, Bagpuss. It was billed as a children's event but it was mostly full of very grown up admirers who owe their childhood to the duo.
This news recently appeared on the 'Dragon Friendly Society' site
'Oliver Postgate is sadly extremely unwell and is resting at his home in Kent. Please send your good wishes and kind prayers to him, to Naomi his partner and to his children.
He is 83.
Seeing things...
...is the name of his autobiography. In which he writes of a woman who told him that due to constant domestic strife when she was a girl,Emily's shop was the only place she ever felt safe (we're dangerously close to misery-lit territory here). I went to a signing and held one of the Clangers. My brother's signed copy is from Oliver Postgate and Bagpuss. He took my request for this as the most natural thing in the world and drew a small paw-print beneath his own signature. A unique gentleman.
This is well worth a look
http://trunkrecords.greedbag.com/buy/ivor-the-engine-and-pogles-wood-0/
Bagpuss - A Socio-Ecconomic Analysis
There is a woman by name of Jill Pythian who once wrote an article called 'Bagpuss - A Socio-Ecconomic Analysis' in which she ascribed various economic positions to the cast of said show. It was very well done and funny and even halfway convincing.
As I recall, Oliver Postgate wrote a lovely letter to her, taking it with great humour.
I wish it were still available to post a link, but it seems to have disappeared from the Net. I can see where it was, but it's not there any more. Even WayBackMachine can't find it.
I remember that
didn't it end with Mr Postgate's handwritten reply of 'All of the above is, of course, complete codswallop' ?
I found a little snippet of the thesis
"The Mice on the Mouse Organ. They represent the workforce, the proletariat. Normally frozen on the mouse organ (the 'organ' of the state which controls and represses them) they are animated by the waking of Bagpuss, showing the enervative power that a single individual's vision can wield within society"
You're probably right
It's been years since I've seen it. I just remember it was very nicely done.
Ah, Pogles Wood
Tales from the dark side for children everywhere. Just the sort of thing to make Sarah Palin run screaming from the room. Genius.