Fine Minute Wonders

On the joy of extremely short TV shows, plus an exciting insight into my brain during lockdown

I write to you, with the Easter holidays well underway, from the East Midlands, having spent the day at the Children’s Country House. It is brilliant. I can’t recommend it enough if you have small people with you; there’s even a whole toy museum complete with precious artefacts from the ancient era known as “the nineties.”   

IIRC I got the Raphael from this very set one Christmas. (Photo: by me)

Interesting Times

Let’s take a walk back to a sadder Easter holiday, to the early days of lockdown (no vaccine, no idea how deadly COVID was, nowhere to go, nothing to do). During the challenging time, I actually wrote an email to CBeebies to ask why they were repeating the episodes so frequently.

Let’s just sit here for a moment and consider the absolute balls-to-the-wall insanity of that. I was looking after toddler twins while my husband (who was recovering from a broken leg) worked upstairs in the spare room. I was actually pretty good at daily loops of the local park – say ‘hi’ to the dog walkers; admire some flowers; no no, don’t eat that funny-looking berry you found on the ground – but clearly television was an absolute Godsend. 

In fact, because I never delete anything, we don’t have to consider it. Let’s have a look at the actual email:

***

from: Moi

to: cbbc@bbc.co.uk

date: 21 May 2020, 17:14

subject: Have I completely lost my mind...

... or are the programmes on an incredibly short loop at the moment? I have 18 month old twins and we LOVE CBeebies, it's great!! Honestly I love the mix of proper old-school Reithian educational TV and fun... My favourites are Kiri and Lou and Hey Duggee. So good.

However is it just lockdown or have you come round to the start of the loop for repeats really fast? Maddie with the hula hoops, Ranger Hamza where they play rounders, Grace's amazing machines with the Orme Tramway??? I feel like I saw them all 3 weeks ago? Is it normally that short? Or was that actually February and I've just lost it? 

Hope you're all well, very impressed with your creativity in these trying times, thought the "swan race" with the blue Ikea bag and BBQ the other day was

Many thanks,

Frances Robinson

***

Interesting Walks

In retrospect, yes: I had completely lost my mind. BUT, revisiting the email has brought me to an important revelation about  that episode of Ranger Hamza… They’re not playing rounders at the end! It’s like some weird version of French cricket? Go and see for yourself on iPlayer. In fact, do check out Let’s Go For a Walk generally. Apart from his ignorance of rounders, Hamza Yassin is an absolute delight. Belfast, Liverpool, the Forest of Dean… it’s a show where he takes groups of children for a walk to find some nature bits, look at sculptures, basically have a bimble around. That’s it, that’s the programme.

If you have taken small children for a walk in the drizzle along the fringes of a golf course while spotting interesting bushes, you’ll know it’s not easy, yet Ranger Hamza has done it again and again – the man’s a hero. During lockdown, it was also an excellent window onto a world we thought we might never see again; I remember delivering the girls a deranged monologue/rant about visiting Saltaire as a teenager while Hamza just tried to enjoy a walk along the canal.

Elsewhere in the email: what was the swan race with the blue Ikea bag thing? I honestly have no idea. This was the point when giving Andy Day a box full of dinosaurs and making him do funny voices was the only way to get new content, so who knows what BBQ swan bag was??? It's lost to the mists of time, along with Tier 3, the PCR tent and everyone in 10 Downing Street’s WhatsApp messages 🤷‍♀️

One man, one room, one massive box of dinos. Seriously, where’s his BAFTA? (Credit: BBC iPLayer)

Now, look, I do understand why they repeat the programmes so often. a) The children aren’t bothered, in fact they love to bask in the warm glow of familiarity. It's only now that mine are five I will occasionally hear “oh  no, not the one with the vet again.” b) I am guessing there’s a limited age range for each programme, so you might see the same episode six times in a year…  but the next year you’ll be too old for that show anyway? c) The programmes are mostly SEVEN MINUTES LONG.

Interesting Choices

Which brings us to the actual point. As a parent, short programmes are your friend. They are brilliant. Because once the children are a bit older, and you’re trying to leave the house and get to nursery/school/circus skills/wherever, you’ll probably find yourself using the TV as part of the getting ready process. (You may not, in which case you can set the oven timer for five minutes to polish your halo.) 

So you’re there: breakfast has been had, some clothes are applied, the shoes are going on (please let the shoes be going on), the shoes are on the floor (oh no), right let’s get some focus in here… Turn off the TV… MUUUUUUUUUUM NO WE WERE WATCHING THAT.

You can see the clock is ticking. (This is the single biggest advantage of CBeebies and Milkshake! On Channel 5 – the clock in the corner of the screen. Love it.) But still, you want to leave without drama…

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

“OK Girls, you can have one more programme. Do you want [here comes a closed choice, the most useful weapon in the entire parenting arsenal] Petsaurus or Dip Dap?”

Everyone cheers the bounteous, gracious giver of “one last programme”, shoes are donned instantly, people find their own coats as the end credits roll, the rain stops, and in the distance a Gloucester Old Spot soars elegantly over the rooftops.

Look, sometimes it’s really handy. Given this, here are three five minute wonders so you can wrap it up and move along to the next thing.

Petsaurus

There are many things to like about Petsaurus. The lovely Welsh accents. The delightful conceit that dinosaurs are back, domesticated and adorably clumsy. The framing, where Chloe and her friends look after their reptilian playmates while the adults (usually) remain off screen. But most of all… The length! It’s two minutes long! A really long one is three minutes. And properly crafted, with a beginning, a middle, and an end! It’s also really useful as a unit of time: “How long til dinner?” “Three Petsauruses… So you can’t have a snack.”

Tweedy & Fluff

Do you want your five minutes of prodding people to be unbelievably cute? Do you want the concept of hygge to be brought to life before your very eyes? Do you want an adorable little gonk made out of Brora offcuts with a cheeky ball of fluff for a pet to get stuck in a boot, or covered in chocolate spread? Of course you do. Tweedy & Fluff is both small and perfectly formed, and it has Nina Wadia as the narrator, so basically the whole thing is like a giant snuggly hug. That’s both its triumph and its downfall – there is a very real danger you’ll end up snuggled on the sofa, too.

The snuggle is real (Photo: www.tweedyandfluff.com)

Molang

It was only while searching for the umlaut as I was typing this that I realised the ö in Molang is actually just a regular o with bunny ears. I have been calling him “Merlang” in the manner of an eighties metal band the whole time. But no. It’s just bunny ears. Oops. 

Molang is a big cute white rabbit who was an emoji in South Korea before French company Millimages him into a series. It is RIDONKULOUSLY cute. Molang and his bunny buddies tool around playing basketball, camping, doing fashion shows, while adorable little chick sidekick Piu-Piu gets coaxed out of being shy, and sometimes reins in the rabbit squad’s excesses. 

It’s also utter fluff. I took the girls to see it on the big screen at Picturehouse Toddler Time (which is a great invention – the cinema, without the time or emotional investment of a feature film). I loved it, but I’d forgotten all the plots by the end of the bus ride home. Such is life! If you offered me a trip to the pub with Molang or Bing, it would be Molang every time. Sorry Flop.

This is a non-exhaustive list of short shows. Some more to check out – ones that we’ll discuss in coming weeks – include Dip Dap, B.O.T and the Beasties (not a break dance crew, despite their name), and Kiri and Lou. In the meantime, what are your favourite shows that clock in at five minutes or under?

Thanks as ever to Tom Phillips (buy his books, they’re excellent) for editing.