#oliver postgate

[haveyouseenthisseries-poll]

[mametzwood]

Bagpuss, oh, Bagpuss

Oh, fat, furry cat puss,

Wake up and look at the thing that I bring

Wake up, be bright, be golden and light.

Bagpuss, oh hear what I sing

[6monthsofwinter]

Oliver Postgate musta been on some whack ass shrooms when he wrote the Bagpuss episode about the small soft Hamish.

If you don't know, Bagpuss is a kids' show from the 70s (?) about a toy cat and his chums who keep finding Objects and being like "tf is this brah" and Bagpuss is like "this is the foolish fluffy fiddlestick from Finland you flibbertigibbets" and then tells them all about the foolish fluffy fiddlestick from Finland. And then the woodpecker (chum #1) goes like nyehhh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nonsense (direct quote btw) and the rag doll and frögge (chums #2 and #3) are like ACKSHUALLY it's a fly swatter but nice try bozo. And then they sing a song. There are some mice sometimes too :3

ANYWAY one episode starts with them finding a weird tartan rat thing (fig. A) and they're like "🤔" and then Bagpuss gets his Thinking Cap and clocks that it's a "small soft Hamish" and tells the story of Tavish McTavish, a Scottish fella who lived in the mountains because every other human being fucking hated him cause he was bad at playing the bagpipes. And then one day he hears someone else being really shit at bagging the pipes and he's like "Crikey!!! It must be my long-lost brother Hamish McTavish!" And then it walks up and it's actually this weird tartan creature??? And it's small and soft and he dubs it the Hamish (Fig. B) because its call sounds like his brother playing the bagpipes. And by the way it also has a long-lost brother. And then it fucks off cause its family show up and Tavish is all alonesome :( so he moves BACK down the mountain to civilisation and just never plays the bagpipes again. Cause everyone hates it. And he never finds his brother ever again, too bad so sad, the end.

But not really the end cause then the woodpecker goes like "Bagpuss you dopey twat it's a porcupine just without any spines" and Bagpuss goes like "bull fucking shit there ain't no thing" and the frögge and the rag doll sing a song to try motivate the porcupine to grow some spines? But the song is about a porcupine "sailing" a hot air balloon around the world and then its spines pop the balloon and it falls? And they realise at the end that that was a fairly fucking stupid choice of song to motivate it to grow MORE spines and anyway guys false alarm it's actually just a pincushion. So then the mice chant while dancing in circles and ritualistically stabbing it with dozens of pins like it's Julius fucking Caesar (Fig. C) and THEN the episode ends. Fucking WILD.

But seriously you should watch Bagpuss it's so good

Fig. A: The porcupine pre-ritualistic murder

Fig. B: The small soft Hamish engages in intimate relations with Tavish McTavish

Fig. C: The mice dance around the perforated corpse of the porcupine

[spilladabalia]

Mark Fry - The Witch

[thathousebylittlehouse]

[downthetubes]

Celebrations begin early for the 50th anniversary of Bagpuss with new high definition Blu-ray and DVD release this week

Ahead of his 50th anniversary next year, this week sees the release of the hugely popular Bagpuss animated series in high definition - and there are other celebratory happenings, too

[dowsingfordivinity]

Oliver Postgate autobiography

Currently reading Seeing Things by Oliver Postgate. The most gripping autobiography I have ever read. It’s my second time reading it and I’d forgotten how gripping it is. (more…) “”

[earhartsease]

find you someone who says "soup" the way Oliver Postgate did

[rexmaggedon]

I introduced my mother to the concept of simlish music.

10/10 would recommend, we ended up gesticulating wildly whilst talking in clangerspeak for the next half hour.

[bunnziebobcat]

Fan Art Friday - Duke Phillips meets Bagpuss

This week's #FanArtFriday features Duke Phillips from Al Jean and Mike Reiss' The Critic (Gracie Films/CPT) meets Bagpuss (Smallfilms/BBC), who turned fifty this year, and they're celebrating the heavenly birthdays of Duke's voice artist, Charles Napier, and Bagpuss' co-creator, Oliver Postgate, respectively.

[iconuk01]

Oliver Postgate narrated so many happy memories in my childhood that I can hear that voice

In the immortal words of even hardened super-cynic Charlie Brooker, whose admiration for the Smallfilms output was absolute: "Stuff your bird or whale song, forget about breezes in cornfields or lapping waves and waterfalls: there is no more calming sound in the world than the voice of Oliver Postgate. With him narrating your life, you'd feel cosy and safe even during a gas explosion. It floated above all these stories, that voice; wound its way through them. It was the kindest, wisest voice you ever heard"

A different Noggin

After @petermorwood and I got married, we started the process of many long discussions about what kinds of media we'd each grown up with that the other one had never seen or heard of before.

During this process I discovered to my astonishment that a limited-animation series of which I had only the vaguest memory was actually a real thing. (Which was reassuring, as for some years I'd half believed that I'd dreamed or hallucinated it.)

It turns out that WNET in New York—my home PBS TV station—had for a short time in the early 1960s carried episodes of a charming British animated series the name of which I'd long forgotten. But when I described a memory of "mournful clarinet* music" and mentioned the first few lines of the only episode I thought I remembered—"In the land of the North, where the black rocks stand guard against the cold seas—" Peter immediately laughed and said, "Noggin the Nog!"

And of course that's what it was: one of numerous BBC animated series devised by the amazing writer/animator Oliver Postgate and his collaborator, puppeteer and artist Peter Firmin—later jointly responsible for classics like Bagpuss and The Clangers.

Noggin (for those of you who haven't met him yet) starts out as the Prince of the Nogs, the northern people over whom he eventually becomes King, despite the continual machinations of his evil uncle Nogbad the Bad. It's all extraordinarily good-natured and gentle stuff, witty and inventive, with Noggin's intelligence and kindness repeatedly saving him and his friends from trouble. You can see the first episode of the series here.

What brings the subject up right now, though, is that this morning I mentioned Noggin to Peter and said "I wonder how much Noggin they've got on YouTube?" Peter went looking... and then found something astonishing: an episode of Noggin that someone had fandubbed into Old English. Here it is. (Do turn the captions on: they've subtitled this episode in OE.)

...Meanwhile, if you're already familiar with this series, you may like to hear that The Sagas of Noggin the Nog is available on DVD from the Dragons' Friendly Society.

*Actually oboe, I think.

[haveyouseenthisseries-poll]

[seriousbrat]

Serious question: what do you think Lily’s favorite movie was?

Okay I've been thinking about this question! It's somewhat difficult because I don't think she would have been going to see a lot of movies later in the 70s, not once she's in the Order- though maybe she might have taken James at some point just so he could see what it was like.

Unfortunately (because I hate w*ody Allen) i kind of think she might have liked Annie Hall (1977), had she seen it. But I think my answer might be Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). I can see her taking James to Life of Brian as well. Maybe she liked something weird like Harold and Maude (1971) but she was a bit young when it was released, or something alt and punky like Jubilee (1978)

There were probably films from the 60s she saw on television (back then it apparently took like... a decade for films to appear on TV after being released in cinemas) like Georgy Girl (1966) and A Taste of Honey (1961). I see her liking films about plucky young heroines haha. Also I think she would have pretended not to like things like Grease because Petunia did lol, but secretly enjoyed them.

And I know you didn't ask about TV but she likely would have been watching more TV than movies since it was more accessible/constantly available, things like Coronation Street, Fawlty Towers and ofc Doctor Who. She probably grew up with Oliver Postgate series (they're beautiful, highly recommend) like The Clangers and Pogles' Wood, as well as Blue Peter and the Basil Brush Show lol (he's a fox, not a squirrel!)

Sorry that got so long!!

[downthetubes]

WebFind: The Clangers Script Book deep discounted by Postscript Books

Devon-based independent bookseller Postscript Books are currently offering copies of Clangers - The Complete Scripts 1969–1974 by Daniel and Oliver Postgate at substantial discount

[c86]

Happy 50th birthday Bagpuss 🎂

Clangers, Bagpuss & Co exhibition at V&A Museum of Childhood

Bagpuss, The Clangers and Pogles’ Wood

[6monthsofwinter]

I have been considering bagpuss a lot again and can sense another massive rambley post explaining one of the episodes coming on. No promises but it's so fun writing those and I still get notifs about people liking the last one which is cray cray that there are that many folks who know of bagpuss. But yeah.