CBEEBIES: Hey Duggee!

“Isn’t it time for….  Duggee!!!”

Most other parents I’ve spoken to about Cbeebies programmes will agree on at least one thing - Hey Duggee is great.

It follows the adventures of a Scouts-like club called the Squirrels, made up of various animals - Octopus, Crocodile, Rhino and so on - who earn their badges for doing different activities.  Their scoutmaster is an enormous dog called Duggee.  Or he is a normal sized dog and they’re all tiny…  It doesn’t matter - as we saw with Bing in the last Cbeebies post animal realism has no place in children's’ television.

Which sounds very plain and quite dull, and it isn’t either of those things.  For a start, the badges the Squirrels earn don’t dictate the adventures they have - it’s not a case of ‘they need to earn their climbing badge, they climb somewhere, get the badge, the end.’  Rather they have an imaginative adventure and a badge relating to what they have been doing is just presented at the end by Duggee with an enthusiastic ‘Woof!’ (By the way, Duggee doesn’t speak English, unlike the other animals, but communicates surprisingly well with a large range of expressive woofs.)

This gives it room to be a playful relaxed show rather than having each episode be a quest for something or have an objective to achieve (the opposite Cbeebies example would be the Go Jetters, who have to find a way to defeat Grandmaster Glitch each episode - but that’s a different post).  The Squirrels don’t even always have ‘adventures’ as such; sometimes things just happen in a dream logic sort of way.  As it should always be in children’s telly everything is bracketed in a friendly, non-threatening bubble without being bland or uninnovative.

This nice atmosphere and bright friendly colours makes it a very relaxing show to watch.  The shapes and animation style are minimalist and uncluttered, making it easy on the eye and easier to go haywire on doing different plots.  It has a fearsomely catchy banjo theme tune.  It also has a whimsical sense of humour which is emphasised by the narration - Alexander Armstrong is the celebrity voice for Hey Duggee and he is very good at doing the friendly upper-class patrician voice (think Stephen Fry’s voice for General Melchett in Blackadder IV with less psychosis).  The humour of the plots can be seen in the clip below, where we find out how far the Squirrels have had to travel on their treasure hunt...

The badges the Squirrels earn are always very specific to the plot that has happened, almost suspiciously so.  It wouldn’t surprise me that when Duggee rushes off to get the badges to hand out at the end of each episode, he’s actually running off to make them all as well.  For instance did a Dancing Bug badge really exist prior to the episode where Duggee had a bug dancing on him?

Also, did Duggee create the Squirrels Club, or is he just one of many club leaders?  And do the parents know about him giving the Squirrels a ‘Duggee hug’ at the end of each session?  If Duggee wasn’t a dog but a human that bit of the show would be a little bit dodgy…  

Forgetting the facetious niggles, Hey Duggee is probably the only Cbeebies programme I can binge watch if necessary.  And could probably binge watch on my own time as well as my son’s.  One of my favourite episodes is the Sandcastle Badge one - where the episode morphs from the Squirrels building a sandcastle into an episode of Location, Location, Location, with a deluxe castle being designed for a not terribly macho crab and his long-suffering friend Nigel. At the end of the episode, after the Squirrels have gone, the crab sees the tide coming in and says “Let’s enjoy it Nigel… While it lasts.”  Which is pretty much how I feel about each episode in the morning, before the maelstrom of life kicks off again.

CBEEBIES: The Dystopian Limbo Of Bing, And Other Theories

I wasn’t planning on doing another Cbeebies post so soon.  But since the last post, where we mentioned Bing only in passing, my wife and friends have put forward their theories about his parentage.

Then a Den Of Geek article last Thursday was solely devoted to the subject.  Obviously this is a hot topic, and it can’t be long before the scandal orientated tabloids will be knocking on Flop’s door, demanding the truth.

But who is Bing?  Bing is a loud and large rabbit, with a penchant for red checked dungarees and being a pain in the hole.  He has several friends of different species, who are roughly the same age and roughly the same size.  Sula, for instance, is an elephant, but is quite happy to play with Bing instead of trampling him underfoot because they take the same size in trousers.

Bing and his friends are analogous to toddlers.  They have parent figures - Bing’s is called Flop.  Flop is the real star of the show as far as parents are concerned, because he manages to solve Bing’s most recent meltdown so calmly - suavely even.  

A usual Bing plot is that Bing is playing with one of his friends (Sula seems to be a regular victim), or maybe just hanging out with Flop; something goes wrong for Bing, whether it’s that he lost at a game, or found out someone is better at doing something than he is, or they’ve not got food he likes in for tea; Flop patiently explains to Bing, in a very calm voice, why he’s behaving like an arse and what he can do to improve; happiness prevails.  The episode alway ends with Flop saying “[episode subject matter] - it’s a Bing thing!”  This means that a lot of seemingly everyday things are actually Bing things, including shadows, ice creams and growing.  Maybe the show is trying to claim everything that exists is Bing’s, step by step.

Flop has extraordinarily good parenting skills, especially with patience like his, and is an excellent role model for young Bing.  The reason why Bing’s parentage is of such curiosity is that Flop is a small orange soft toy about a quarter of the size of his charge.  And what takes this out of the realms of curiosity and into the land of very odd indeed is that every single animal in Bing’s town has a similar parent figure.  

Flop is definitely, in no shape or form, a rabbit (or any other sort of animal).  My longstanding pet theory is that he is, but in the land where Bing is set, children just happen to look like animals until they reach adulthood - when Bing becomes an adult he will overnight turn into something rather like Flop (it’s heartening to see that this exact theory was endorsed by the Den of Geek post).  My wife’s theory is that Bing and all of his friends are in foster care, and that the town is essentially a foster town, with altruistic bean bags taking on animal children from broken homes.

After posting the previous post, which wasn’t even about Bing, several theories from friends came forth on Facebook, including:

“Bing exists in a dystopian limbo in which young animals with learning difficulties are banished to be cared for by pastel-coloured knitted golems.”

“I've always seen Flop and his ilk as social workers or foster carers, but then coco's equivalent appears to be a very busy business 'woman', dumping them on anyone that'll take them, doesn't even say hi or thanks to flop for babysitting. Rude.”

“I've spoke to [my daughter] about it, and she very much thinks that Flop is Bing's dad. “

The Den Of Geek article covers several of the above theories and several others (and the internet at large has even more).  It’s obviously a matter of growing national concern, and it’s only a matter of time before the heavyweight journalists get involved and bring us the truth.  Unless Flop is bribing them to keep his story safe.

However all of this parentage stuff is a bit of a distraction from the main issue I have with the problem which is that Bing is an insanely irritating character.  He has an extremely whiney voice, and almost anything he says is bound to annoy me - but the worst is in the title sequence, where he trips, Flop says “are you alright Bing?” and he replies “yuh-hu-uh!”.  I don’t know why this bothers me as much as it does.  It’s probably the lack of basic vocabulary - I expect more from a cartoon toddler rabbit on the BBC.  But as a character he is also very prone to being selfish and just always has to be the centre of attention - he’s very much a drama queen.  If I owned a rabbit like that, I’d probably try to give him up for adoption to a bean bag creature myself.

In closing, it should be noted that my son cares considerably less about Bing than I do.

Spot The Celebrity Voice - Mark Rylance (yes, RSC trained, Wolf Hall star Mark Rylance) as Flop.  The first celebrity voice I noticed on Cbeebies, it blew my mind how many famous actors were on the channel at first.  These days it seems odd if I don’t recognise any names at all.

CBEEBIES: Baby Jake, Raa Raa & Teletubbies

An occasional look at the weird, occasionally wonderful and often deranged world of programmes for toddlers

My morning routine more often than not involves Cbeebies.  I’m sure I’m not the only parent who is in the Cbeebies zone, although I’m sure some are happier to be there than others.  

One thing I like a lot about most Cbeebies programmes is the freewheeling logic where anything can happen - there’s often the surreal anarchy of Terry Gilliam’s animations for Monty Python.  One of my favourite such moments is from Sarah And Duck, where Sarah and her best friend, a duck, are having a bonfire and the Moon just joins in and starts chatting to them.  It doesn’t change size or anything, it just develops hands and a mouth and the programme carries on as normal.  

I’m planning to look at much more of the Cbeebies programmes over time, but let’s start with some of the ones I see most regularly first thing in the morning:

BABY JAKE

Baby Jake is creepy.  Basically, Jake is a real baby who becomes a South Park-style cut-out animation character with a permanent smile.  In fact, more specifically, he is like Saddam Hussein in South Park: The Movie.  The narration is done by his in-story brother Isaac, and there are songs as well.  Luckily, I’m usually in the shower while Baby Jake is doing his thing, because he really creeps me out.  I think it’s just the cut-out thing - in the live action scenes that bookend the show he’s a perfectly cute little boy.  I’m obviously the sort of person who can’t help overthinking things - I am writing a blog about TV for toddlers for a start - but making the cut-out do things makes me think of some horror concept where a character is forced to do things like a marionette.  The jolly child narration and singing doesn’t alleviate this - in fact it probably reinforces it.  The episodes themselves demonstrate the freewheeling plots I was talking about perfectly - the one I just looked up at random is a space adventure with hamsters, and has plenty of bits of cut-out Jake flying past stars and planets.  

I do sometimes wonder whether in 15 years time real life Jake’s parents will boast to the girls he brings home about how he used to have his TV show and embarrass the hell out of him - I know I would.  I hope his parents are kinder than me.  Anyway, using our own toddler for experimentation purposes, he is mildly interested in the Yaccki Yaccki Yoggi song but generally the programme doesn’t grab his attention.  Sorry, Jake.

RAA RAA THE NOISY LION

Raa Raa is, indeed, a noisy lion.  He lives in a Jingly Jangly Jungle, claymation style.  His friends are a monkey, a giraffe, a zebra an elephant and a crocodile, who are all the same size as him.  Raa Raa is a good entry-level example of this sort of thing - if you can’t hack it with Raa Raa, Bing is going to be too rich for your blood, but that’s for another time.  

Raa Raa and his friends are quite fun - the episode I saw a few days ago had Raa Raa singing about his favourite things, taking them out on a walk, losing them all and his friends help him find them.  The tickling feather Zebra and Monkey were enjoying is nobly given back to Raa Raa when they find out it is his feather - or maybe they’re just worried if they don’t give it back they’ll be eaten.  The jungle setting is strangely white, which I have just realised as I write this, puts me a little bit in mind of episode 1 of the classic 60s Doctor Who story ‘The Mind Robber’.  Raa Raa’s relentless optimism and energy (and indeed noisiness) grates on me after the first five minutes or so, but that’s my problem for not drinking coffee before it’s on.  Lorraine Kelly does the narration by the way - for the uninitiated there’s more than a few ‘spot the celebrity voice’ moments on Cbeebies.  

For our son the theme tune will get him stood to attention watching - however, during the main programme he will run around losing his own favourite things.

TELETUBBIES

Teletubbies is the most famous of the Cbeebies programmes.  If you have never tuned in to Cbeebies you more than likely still know of the Teletubbies and can probably name them.  There is a laughing baby’s face for the sun, then Teletubbies come leaping out of holes in the ground like colourful moles.  The first bit of the programme normally has them picking up signals for us to watch something on their tubs.  This is normally a minute of a day out to a farm or a car show or some such, which is then repeated immediately.  After this, the Teletubbies, go and look at their children (Tiddlytubbies), eat some Tubbycustard or Tubbytoast, then it’s time for Tubbybyebye.

Which actually all seems quite conservative and low key in the current land of Cbeebies.  Even Postman Pat, in his super-turbo-charged Special Delivery Service incarnation somehow seems more modern.  That’s not a criticism of Teletubbies, a lot obviously goes into making it.  Its formula is quite strict, and is never really deviated from - the reasoning presumably being that children find comfort in repetition.  

Spot The Celebrity Voices: Jim Broadbent, Fearne Cotton and occasionally Jane Horrocks - not that you can recognise any of them

It’s not really something that keeps me interested but, crucially this is a programme that really does get our son watching, usually to the point where the only movement he makes is jumping up and down or pointing at the screen.  And that should be the main aim of any children’s programme.