#oliver postgate

[dduane]

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.

[c86]

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

Bagpuss, The Clangers and Pogles’ Wood

[angelophile]

This is what my childhood looked like.

[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

[hypnogoria]

The secret origins of the Clangers!

[hangingoninquietdesparation]

can't help pulling on a thread and where will it lead a new indie band leads to an old indie band which leads to a green dragon living in a land occupied by knitted mice

[spookdoodles]

bagpuss, dear bagpuss

[markbradleyillustration]

A little Clangers piece, done in memory of Oliver Postgate who was born on 12th April 1925 and sadly passed in 2008. I know I harp on about Postgate's & Firmin's work a lot, but they are two of my biggest heroes. To be able to create work that is so warm and full of care and imagination is a truly amazing thing. From everything I've listened to and read about Postgate, one thing I keep coming across is that he seemed to have an inherent sadness in him and I don't think he ever really understood how much his work touched others lives. That's always made me really sad. His series, which was injected with so much of his personality, brought so much happiness to people and have inspired so many others. What he achieved with his series is a body of work that shows him to be one of the best children's storytellers of all time. Even if he may not have felt it, he was nothing short of amazing.

[c86]

Bagpuss!

Artwork by Peter Firmin

via Dolly Dolly Image weekly

[angelophile]

Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss Old Fat Furry Catpuss Wake up and look at this thing that I bring Wake up, be bright, be golden and light Bagpuss, oh hear what I sing

[haveyouseenthisseries-poll]

[patampopcorn]

Animator Oliver Postgate with characters from Clangers (date unknown).

[blissedasanewt]

Major Clanger and Tiny Clanger pay tribute to children's animator extraordinaire Oliver Postgate, with this mosiac on the wall of his house at Chandos Road, Broadstairs (flickr.com/photos/dgeezer:)

[hedgerowdevil]

"In the lands of the North, where the Black Rocks stand guard against the cold sea, in the dark night that is very long, the Men of the Northlands sit by their great log fires and they tell a tale ... and those tales they tell are the stories of a kind and wise king and his people; they are the Sagas of Noggin the Nog. Welcome to Northlands, a tribute to Noggin, King of the Nogs and the People of the Northlands."

Set in a mystical Viking-era world of magical forests, talking birds, and, as we see in this story, Ice Dragons, Noggin the Nog is a fondly remembered children's TV series that originally ran in the early 1960s, though I only remember the colour version of the late '70s when Smallfilms brought it back. The basic 'handmade' quality of the stop-motion animation is all part of its charm, and the warm, reassuring tones of Oliver Postgate sends me straight back to childhood.

[concore]