THREAT OR MENACE? The rave kids first started telling me about a kid show for infants and kids up to
about five years old called TELETUBBIES and shown on public television. From what they
were saying, this was not an annoying kids show like BARNEY. Nor was it even politically
correct, often having no plot or lesson to be learned. I thought to myself that after a
night of doing E or acid the ravers would watch anything My curiosity piqued and we watched it together. Addictive is only part of the equation. This show is actually better than drugs! If you have never seen the show, the program begins with a sun rising, which features
the face of a giggling infant. Microphone/ speakers rise up from the ground and announce
that it's "Time for teletubbies". These round,genderless colored things pop up
from a hole in the ground. Lala, Dipsy, Tinky and Po (Lala and Po are my favorites). This
land they occupy has a Buckminster Fuller type Our stories continue until the mysterious speakers emerge and announce that it's time for teletubbie bye bye.Well! Is the sun God watching the teletubbies? Or is the baby dreaming them? Is the speaker as close as we get to an adult? Just what are the teletubbies, what goes on in the hole in the earth? Who built their home? There are no answers, only dreams. And what dreams there are. My all time favorite episode is the one about the color
blue. Kids paint their hands blue. A valley fills with water. The teletubbies watch boats
float by. I have never seen a show before that was pure visual poetry, but the blue
episode is it. I can't tell you the teletubbies' gender*. One carries a purse, but
in the skirt episode all of them take turns wearing it! I can't even tell you how tall
they are. It is nearly impossible to figure out as the flowers seem half as tall as them.
But I do think I have stumbled on their charm. Think back to the earliest days of film.
Georges Melies' sun often had a human face. The speeded up antics of the Those early films were meant for adults. A century later, the same plots and devices are watched by children under the age of five, not a sign of dumbing down if you ask me. But you don't have to be a child to love this show.Try a couple. There is nothing to feel guilty about. Just watch me. I LIKE TELETUBBIES! Cheers, |
TELETUBBIES
and didn't pay much attention to the show until others began to talk about it.
My girlfriend Kat ( a deejay at Lucky Chang's in New York City, I won't go into that)had
tried to watch the show but stopped. Almost afraid that if she saw another episode it
would become addictive. 
house, rabbits running around
and hills of green. The name has to do with a bizarre fan that spins around causing
their tummies to glow- until one becomes a screen and shows film of real kids doing stuff-
twice. 
teletubbies recall the Keystone cops. Early films had no real plot - the Edison
films showed people doing chores and at play, just as the teletubbie tummy scenes do.
There are no lessons to be learned. Just the charm and magic of a new invention showing us
magic and our lives. 
