Teletubbies

About

Teletubbies is a British children's television series which features four main brightly colored creatures (Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa, and Po) each with a distinct antenna and television screen abdomen. The show first aired in 1997 and was geared toward a pre-schooled audience but soon gathered an adult cult following due to its many bizarre aspects including a sentient vacuum, a sun featuring a baby's face and its psychedelic setting.

History

On March 31st, 1997, Teletubbies first episode, "Ned's Bicycle" aired on BBC2 (shown below). The series became a success and generated over one billion dollars in merchandise sales in three years.^[1] The original series ended in 2001 but 60 new episodes were reordered in 2014.^[2]

Reception

Since 1997, Teletubbies has won numerous BAFTA awards.^[3] It's theme song "Say Eh-Oh" sold over one million copies and reached the number one spot on the UK Singles Chart in 1997.^[4]

Upon the show's release, many parents wrote to the show executives complaining about the babbling talk featured in the series saying it was harmful to a child's communication development. The show's creators Anne Wood and Andrew Davenport disagreed and proved that there were many ways of communication used in the show to aid in a child's development.^[5] Other reviews like one from the New York Times^[6] mentioned its surreal aspects.

Tinky Winky Controversy

In 1997, cultural critic Andy Medhurst claimed the the teletubby Tinky Winky was a covert homosexual character due to its purple color, woman's handbag and his triangle antenna shaped like the gay pride symbol.^[7] The BBC responded by saying that the character was "simply a sweet, technological baby with a magic bag" but that didn't dissuade some parents from making further complaints to the network. ^[8]

Impact

Teletubbies made a lasting impact on Television and pop culture over all platforms. For example, in episode 12 of The Vicar of Dibley some characters dressed as Teletubbies in a wedding scene (shown below, left) while The Simpsons has referenced the children's television show over nine times throughout the series (shown below, right).

Fandom

The Teletubbies has inspired various fan accounts and subreddits, like r/teletubbiesfact^[9] and r/teletubbieslore,^[10] geared toward posting Teletubbies related images and fan lore. There are thousands of Teletubbies related merchandise for both adults and children available today.^[11][12]

Fan Theories

One of the first critics to point out the series Science Fiction Utopian aspects was Adam Roberts in the 90s. Many theorists like Gollancz^[13] agreed saying,

"Their utopian existence depends upon them being fully child-like, in all respects. That is the point. The programmes broadcast to the creatures’ inset televisions are, presumably, historical documentaries about the way life used to be, concentrating quite naturally on the infantile existence as the paradigm for the future utopia. The face in the sun becomes, I suppose, the manifestation of the central machine intelligence that regulates and maintains the world.

There have been various conspiracy theories linked and lore surrounding the Teletubbies series. On August 28th, 2015, YouTuber Kmack Time uploaded a video explaining a theory claiming that Teletubbies are actually slaves (shown below). The video gained over 131,400 views and 1,800 likes in five years. Other theories include that the sun baby character is actually a demon and that the show hypnotizes children.^[14]

Related Memes

Sun Baby

Featured in the series is a sun with a real baby's face. The sun baby's presence in the show has inspired many comedic video and image edits. On October 6th, 2015, YouTuber Bill Totes uploaded a Rick and Morty sun baby edit which accumulated over 67,500 views in four years (shown below).

On July 10th, 2019, Redditor sehitposttime uploaded an image featuring the sun baby to r/me_irl^[17] which garnered over 4,900 points (96% upvoted) in a month (shown below, left). In July 2019, various images of the original actress who played the sun baby in the series holding her own alleged baby circulated online. On July 20th, Twitter user @Lu_Lams_^[15] posted the image saying, "The teletubbies sun baby has a baby" (shown below, right). The post garnered over 218,700 likes and 93,600 retweets in a month. The image was actually from a 2015 article in the Mirror^[16] which showed the original sun baby, Jess Smith, holding the new baby to play the sun baby.

Black and White Teletubbies

On March 25, 2015, @RiffRaff1971^[18] tweeted a still of the Teletubbies in black and white (shown below, left). The tweet garned over 20,300 likes and 24,100 retweets in four years. The original image was paired with various text over the next four years. On July 5th, 2019, Instagram user Musicsnobofficial^[19] uploaded the image as an answer to "what kind of music are you into?"(shown below, right). the image accumulated over 1,400 likes in a month.

Music Video Edits

Since Teletubbies first aired their many people have uploaded music videos featuring the footage from the show. Most notably, On March 26th, 2015, Christopher G. Brown uploaded a Joy Division edit which has accumulated over 3.7 million views in four years (shown below, left) and Robert Jones's Die Antwoord edit which was uploaded four months later and garnered over three million views in four years (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References