The Idler

Letter from the Editor: 10

KIDS TV

I worry about the kids of today. They are being brainwashed by television. Take Bob the Builder. This cheerfully coloured animated series, detailing the exploits of an mind-blowingly uninteresting builder called Bob, his (non-sexual) partner Wendy, a naughty scarecrow, imaginatively called Spud, and a host of anthropomorhised concrete mixers, diggers and trucks, may seem harmless enough to the casual observer.

But I believe that Bob the Builder has a more sinster remit, and that it is in fact a powerful piece of pro-work propaganda, probably cooked up in a Whitehall bunker, designed to indoctrinate small children with the work ethic. In the world of Bob the Builder, work is undertaken with good grace and cheer. No one goes on strike. There are no hangovers. No shirking. No revolutionary rumblings against the capitalist Bob. Every morning, Bob leads his cult of willing drones to another job. “Can we fix it?” he asks. “Yes, we can,” comes the moronic reply, like a mantra. The theme song includes such lines as “working together, to get the job done”. (You’ll notice that this song, despite being completely untroubled by musical invention, style, originality or even melody, mysteriously made its way to the top of the hit parade earlier this year. Someone, somewhere – perhaps David Blunkett – knows why). Perhaps the presence of Spud, the naughty potato-man, might cheer you up. He likes to wreck Bob’s plans, loves to sabotage his neat building projects, makes every effort to bring some chaos into Bob and Wendy’s ordered world. Spud is always lurking in the bushes when Bob and his team are getting the job done, planning a piece of mischief. But as he is rather dim and unsophisticated, his dirty deeds are always discovered and he is always punished, sending the message to three year olds that dissenters will not be tolerated, that you must be a team-player and you must uncomplainingly get the job done. The alternatives, Spud demonstrates, are dire.

If you think I am merely projecting, then let me present you with a conclusive piece of evidence. In an episode I was watching the other day, Bob comes out into the yard one morning and announces to all his machines that he is giving them a day off. Rather than cheering and sprinting to the pub, as any sane person would, these employees actually complain. What were they to do all day without work to distract their poor little minds? Later in that same episode, the machines were to be seen running around in a sort of parody of work; they were working even when there was no work to be done – what can I say?

Budgie the Helicopter has a similar agenda. Again, it revolves around a hard-working team of machines – this time, helicopters and aeroplanes – who spend all day fixing things. No surprise, perhaps, that it was penned by a pillar of the establishment, a defender of the status quo, an agent of the government, in the shape of Fergie. The intention is plain: turn today’s toddlers into tomorrow’s unimaginative drudges.

These pro-work children’s serials are in sharp contrast to the kids’ TV of the Seventies. The Seventies was the era of the three-day week and of powerful unions ensuring no one worked too hard, so perhaps it is not a surprise that there is no hint of a work ethic in any of them. The best were purely works of the imagination, pure art with no social agenda or educational remit and no connection to the real world whatsoever.

The Clangers is about a race of pink puppets who live on a tiny planet and get into adventures each day, involving such surreal touches as musical notes falling from the sky. Bagpuss is set in a shop that doesn’t sell anything, surely an anti-commercial message there. Bagpuss himself spends most of his time asleep. Each episode revolves around a piece of discarded junk that the shop’s owner, Emily, has found lying in the street. Bagpuss, the mice on the mouse organ, the rational-minded and sceptical professor Yaffle the woodpecker, plus a singing frog and a rag doll come alive to investigate the new item. They then enter a world of fantasy and song before Bagpuss goes back to sleep again.

The Herbs is a faintly psychedelic show about a herb garden. There is Parsley the lion, an owl called Sage, Lady Rosemary and Sir Basil, Bay Leaf the gardener and of course the onion schoolmaster with his chive pupils. In common with the other two, the Herbs has no connection whatsoever to the real world.

In literary terms, Bob the Builder is a Haynes Motor Manual while the other shows shows are Blake, Edward Lear and Coleridge. So much for our progressive society.

KIDS TV

I worry about the kids of today. They are being brainwashed by television. Take Bob the Builder. This cheerfully coloured animated series, detailing the exploits of an mind-blowingly uninteresting builder called Bob, his (non-sexual) partner Wendy, a naughty scarecrow, imaginatively called Spud, and a host of anthropomorhised concrete mixers, diggers and trucks, may seem harmless enough to the casual observer.

But I believe that Bob the Builder has a more sinster remit, and that it is in fact a powerful piece of pro-work propaganda, probably cooked up in a Whitehall bunker, designed to indoctrinate small children with the work ethic. In the world of Bob the Builder, work is undertaken with good grace and cheer. No one goes on strike. There are no hangovers. No shirking. No revolutionary rumblings against the capitalist Bob. Every morning, Bob leads his cult of willing drones to another job. “Can we fix it?” he asks. “Yes, we can,” comes the moronic reply, like a mantra. The theme song includes such lines as “working together, to get the job done”. (You’ll notice that this song, despite being completely untroubled by musical invention, style, originality or even melody, mysteriously made its way to the top of the hit parade earlier this year. Someone, somewhere – perhaps David Blunkett – knows why). Perhaps the presence of Spud, the naughty potato-man, might cheer you up. He likes to wreck Bob’s plans, loves to sabotage his neat building projects, makes every effort to bring some chaos into Bob and Wendy’s ordered world. Spud is always lurking in the bushes when Bob and his team are getting the job done, planning a piece of mischief. But as he is rather dim and unsophisticated, his dirty deeds are always discovered and he is always punished, sending the message to three year olds that dissenters will not be tolerated, that you must be a team-player and you must uncomplainingly get the job done. The alternatives, Spud demonstrates, are dire.

If you think I am merely projecting, then let me present you with a conclusive piece of evidence. In an episode I was watching the other day, Bob comes out into the yard one morning and announces to all his machines that he is giving them a day off. Rather than cheering and sprinting to the pub, as any sane person would, these employees actually complain. What were they to do all day without work to distract their poor little minds? Later in that same episode, the machines were to be seen running around in a sort of parody of work; they were working even when there was no work to be done – what can I say?

Budgie the Helicopter has a similar agenda. Again, it revolves around a hard-working team of machines – this time, helicopters and aeroplanes – who spend all day fixing things. No surprise, perhaps, that it was penned by a pillar of the establishment, a defender of the status quo, an agent of the government, in the shape of Fergie. The intention is plain: turn today’s toddlers into tomorrow’s unimaginative drudges.

These pro-work children’s serials are in sharp contrast to the kids’ TV of the Seventies. The Seventies was the era of the three-day week and of powerful unions ensuring no one worked too hard, so perhaps it is not a surprise that there is no hint of a work ethic in any of them. The best were purely works of the imagination, pure art with no social agenda or educational remit and no connection to the real world whatsoever.

The Clangers is about a race of pink puppets who live on a tiny planet and get into adventures each day, involving such surreal touches as musical notes falling from the sky. Bagpuss is set in a shop that doesn’t sell anything, surely an anti-commercial message there. Bagpuss himself spends most of his time asleep. Each episode revolves around a piece of discarded junk that the shop’s owner, Emily, has found lying in the street. Bagpuss, the mice on the mouse organ, the rational-minded and sceptical professor Yaffle the woodpecker, plus a singing frog and a rag doll come alive to investigate the new item. They then enter a world of fantasy and song before Bagpuss goes back to sleep again.

The Herbs is a faintly psychedelic show about a herb garden. There is Parsley the lion, an owl called Sage, Lady Rosemary and Sir Basil, Bay Leaf the gardener and of course the onion schoolmaster with his chive pupils. In common with the other two, the Herbs has no connection whatsoever to the real world.

In literary terms, Bob the Builder is a Haynes Motor Manual while the other shows shows are Blake, Edward Lear and Coleridge. So much for our progressive society.