Friday Five: Comic Strip

The national Belgian team have announced that their away strip for the World Cup is an homage to Belgian cartoonist, Hergé and the comic character he is most known for: Tintin. The away kit will feature a blue jersey with characteristic white collar, brown shorts, and white socks. 

This got me thinking about the children's programmes I used to watch as a child, and wondered if any of them could be appropriate for the English national strip. My favourites were Bagpuss and The Clangers. I also quite liked Zippy from Rainbow, although I wasn't such a fan of Bungle and George. Other contenders that spring to mind are The Pathetic Sharks from Viz, Rupert the Bear and, of course, Noddy.

 

More recently (or at least since I no longer watch children's TV), we have had Bob the Builder, Danger Mouse, Morph, Pingu, Postman Pat, Shaun the Sheep, and The Teletubbies. So I can picture the likes of Harry Kane paying homage to Noddy, Jordan Pickford with a rubber ring as a Pathetic Shark, or Jude Bellingham and Marcus Rasdhford as Tinky-Winky and Laa-Laa. Which children's characters do you think would inspire a creative and nostalgic England kit?

 

Friday Five: Cartoon Cats

When I was a child I loved the part in Lady and the Tramp when the Siamese cats slunk their way onto the screen. Yes, they were naughty, but they were clever and they were fun, and I thought the cocker spaniel was bit too cutesy and sanctimonious for her own good, even though I didn't know the meaning of the word sanctimonious at the time. Anyway, they don't really feature in much else, so they don't make the final list, but they are worth an honourable mention. 

5 Favourite Cartoon Cats:

1. Henry's Cat - the small yellow cat who liked nothing better than eating and sleeping grew to have cult following among students; I wonder why...? (I should also mention Custard of Roobarb and Custard fame here, as they were both animated by Bob Godfrey)
2. Bagpuss - he may be just an old saggy cloth cat, baggy and a bit loose at the seams, but Emily loved him. And so do I. Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin created one of my childhood legends.
3. Garfield - he was fat and not particularly attractive until Jim Davis redrew him supposedly to make him less cat-like, and to suit modern audiences who wanted something cuter. He may have the most merchandise of any cartoon cat (although I have never seen the animated version, nor do I wish to), but he still gorges lasagna and despairs of his dim-witted 'owner'.
4. Hobbes - Okay, so he's actually a tiger, but Calvin's feline companion is fantastic. Whether he is being the floppy stuffed toy or the sardonic, sarcastic anthropomorphised live creature, Hobbes is brilliant. Created by Bill Watterson and named after the 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes (with whom he shares a similarly dim view of human nature) the tiger is far more rational and practical than his childish playmate. Incidentally, Bill Watterson insists that cartoon strips should stand on their own as an art form and there are practically no Calvin and Hobbes merchandising products apart from the book collections and calendars.
5. Simon's Cat - simplistic animated drawings by Simon Tofield about a cat who goes to desperate lengths to get his 'owner' to feed him. These display some of the most naturalistic cat behaviours of any cartoon and they never fail to make me laugh.

Oliver Postgate

My mum phoned me last night to tell me that Oliver Postgate has died - yep, that's the kind of mum I've got. She is a big fan of Ivor the Engine (she's always had a thing about steam trains) but she knows that Bagpuss has always been my favourite. I have a little cuddly Bagpuss who sits on top of my television.

I am not alone in my love of this 'Old saggy cloth cat': a recent survey found that he was Britain's best-loved children's TV character. Good old Britain for loving a useless old cat. Good old Britain for conducting a survey about it.

Anyway, Oliver Postgate created this phenomenon and now he has died, so I expect the television to be innundated with classic re-runs. Over here, none of my work colleagues have heard of him, so I have made it my job to educate them all by forwarding this link. His death was headline news in the Guardian - good old Guardian.

I love the whole cast of characters; the singing frog and the ragdoll and the slightly scary (to a five-year-old) Professor Yaffle who had a sharp mind and sharper beak and seemed to know everything, or at least be very good at pretending to.

I loved the efficient mice (the only rodents I’ve ever felt affection for) with their high squeaky voices and the way they were always breaking into song and stitching things back together. They have a mouse organ – which I didn’t find funny at the time, but now consider side-splittingly hysterical. They raced around doing everything while Bagpuss just lay sleepily on his rug watching events and being entertained by the stories and songs.

And this reminds me of Him Outdoors. Bagpuss’ world is in sepia and only comes into colour when he wakes up. This brings all of his friends to life with the line, ‘When Bagpuss wakes up, all of his friends wake up.’ This also reminds me of Him Outdoors who wakes up brightly in the morning and then expects everyone else to be equally alert. He denies this, of course.

His favourite children’s show was The Clangers and yes, Oliver Postgate was responsible for this too. The word surreal is highly overused these days, but this show genuinely was. There were iron chickens, froglets, music trees and a soup dragon who ate blue string pudding and was the inspiration for the name of an indie pop band who had a worldwide hit (well, number 5 in the British charts and 79 in America) with a cover version of I’m Free.

The Clangers themselves are adorable little pink things with big noses and odd Roman-looking garments who live on a small blue planet far, far away and communicate in whistles. Again, this series has legions of fans and there is even a website which offers instructions on how to knit your own Clanger.

I must confess that with his red hair and big nose, I always thought that when Him Outdoors got sunburned, he bore more than a passing resemblance to Tiny Clanger. When I told him this, he was quite offended, not at being compared with a knitted puppet, but because, ‘She’s a girl!’

These were two great shows, which along with Paddington, The Magic Roundabout, and The Herbs have helped to make me the person I am today. Thank you Oliver Postgate; you have so much to answer for.