Goo-gooing gently into that good night

Good week, bad week By Roxanne Sorooshian

It’s been a good week for ... children’s TV

HAPPY birthday, Teletubbies! It’s 20 years since the rotund, crazy-coloured characters bounced on to our screens. Though Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po were loved by children, learned folk declared their gibberish language to be detrimental to child development. The Daily Mirror reported in 1997 that many parents objected to its “goo-goo style”, and psychiatrist Aric Sigman argued: “Teletubbies is as bad for your child as a violent video game.”

Even Common Sense Media’s Emily Ashby, while extolling “the show’s examples of co-operative play”, said that “the creatures can still be a little grating to parents watching along”.

Well, they didn’t grate on this parent. Those psychedelic cherubs were my little helpers all those years ago when we launched the Sunday Herald. It was an exciting time, but the hours were long and I think most of us were running on caffeine and adrenaline. For me, that adrenaline ran dry on a Monday morning. Faced with catching up on chores and a two-year-old running riot, the sound of the Voice Trumpets announcing an episode of Teletubbies was like blub-blub therapy music. So ensued 40 minutes of peace, quiet and potty-training. Ahhhhh.

The two-year-old is now 20 and well out of nappies, thanks in no small part to Tinky Winky et al. There appears to be no permanent psychological scarring from his Teletubbies exposure, and his mother’s mental wellbeing was undoubtedly enhanced by the experience.

So lashings of Tubby Custard all round and many happy repeats.

The programme relaunches on CBeebies next week. Eh-oh!

It’s been a bad week for ... boring funerals

It’s tough when children have to come to terms with the fact that pets are mortal. However, the plucky P3/4 pupils of Dingwall’s Papdale Primary rose to the occasion to give their class goldfish a traditional Norse funeral when they popped their fins. Not for Freddy and Bubbles an unceremonious flush down the school bogs.

Instead, the pupils – who have been studying Vikings – sent them off to Valhalla, launching them into a stream on a burning cardboard longship.

A flame-buoyant ending, indeed.