The Teletubbies is just an annoying but innocent show aimed at toddlers, right? Wrong. This is the true story of how the show teletubbies came into being. Read at own risk I wont be responsible if this ruins your childhood memories of the show.

The Teletubbies is just an annoying but innocent show aimed at toddlers, right? Wrong. This is the true story of how the show teletubbies came into being. Read at own risk I wont be responsible if this ruins your childhood memories of the show.

The Teletubbies is actually based of an institute for the mentally disabled in Bulgaria. The real name of this place is unknown, but it was nicknamed 'LaLa Land'. There, the children were locked away in cold, dark empty rooms with no stimulation. They'd rock endlessly back and forth, and the only time they'd ever be looked after was once a day by the cruel carers, who often beat them and 'forgot' to feed them.

The teletubbies are based of a group of children who all died in the same day there in horrific circumstances.

One of the children there was Lala, her name meant tulip. She had a face deformity, that made her face look stretched and permanently in the shape of a smile, that usually wouldn't make much difference, she could of acted like a normal child. But after being locked in a cold damp room, isolated for all five years of her life, her mind had completely gone. She'd dance around her room to no music, she couldn't speak a word of Bulgarian, but was always muttering away in strange gibberish. She spent her entire life locked inside a room, her skin turned a sickly yellow colour from lack of sunlight, but she she was always smiling. Smiling widely even when she was abused, even when her supposed carers broke her legs so she couldn't dance anymore, even when they kept her tied up to her bed, she would just smile and mumble.

This girl, was obviously the inspiration for Laa-Laa.

Another one of the children was Towotei, a small boy who was only seven during the time of the 'incident'. He, like the others would spend endless days rocking back and forth, mumbling gibberish. His only crime was being deaf and having the same facial deformity as Lala forcing his mouth into a constant smile, and so he was locked up in the institute all his life. He was a troublesome child and would often whack his head against the wall so hard the stone would chip of. Because of that the carers would often lock him outside, tied to the fences. He was left out there so often that he got frostbite, his limbs turned permanently blue from the ice he was forced to endure, it was a miracle he survived as long as he did. But he and Lala had something in common- both of them smiled all the time, even when he was half froze to death he would smile, even when the carers smashed his teeth out one by one with a metal pole because he bit them he kept smiling. Always smiling.

I believe this poor, wretched, unfortunate soul is what Tinky winky is based of.

Next was Donka, he was deformed at birth, just like the other too, and he was also unable to speak because he was simply never taught. He was only six, and was a sickly child. He spent his life half-starved, because he'd almost always throw up the food that was given to him. Because he was so weak, he could hardly walk. He'd spend days, face-down in his own vomit to ill to move away. The people at the institute never bothered to call a doctor to find out what was wrong with him, Donka was always sick- that was too expensive! So the poor boy spent miserable years half-starved, throat and stomach burning from the amount of times he'd thrown up, while lying in a room that permanently reeked of sick. Donka, was the inspiration for Dipsy.

Finally, there was Polina, the youngest of the four, and her story is possibly the most tragic. At three years old, she'd spent her entire like locked away in the institute, the moment she was born, her parents were horrified by her shocking facial deformation- that creepy smile that adorned her face is what dammed her to a life of pain. One day in a particularity cold winter, Polina made the simple mistake of falling asleep near the logs for the fire. That night, the drunken carers threw her onto the fire, not even noticing that she was a toddler, not a lump of wood. She awoke to the searing feeling of flames, the rancid smell of burning flesh filled the air, her skin was melting of her bones. She screamed for help and the carers pulled her out but the damage was done. It was a miracle she survived without any medical attention, but from then on her skin was burned a raw-red colour. But still she smiled. The Teletubbie Po is based of Polina.

If you found the first part of the story upsetting or disturbing, I strongly recommend you stop reading now, because this is the part of the story were we find out just why exactly they were called the Teletubbies. You see, in this bleak, dark and hopeless existence there was something that the children liked- not just like, obsessed over, it was their life! their only source of comfort! the only thing that they deemed worth living for! This thing was the Television, or rather Televisions that constantly played throughout the institute as a way to keep the attention of the disabled, and deformed children that lived within the stone walls. But one day, the four children overheard the Orphanage Director talking, and they heard something that struck the fear of God into them.

"The electricity for the televisions is getting to expensive, get rid of them." The director said, completely unaware that the smiling children looking at her could in fact understand what she was saying, despite never being taught to speak themselves.

The children looked at each other, panic flashing in each of their eyes. Despite their smiles they were terrified. What would they do without the magical music playing box? It gave them kind words, light, something to watch other than the other children rocking back and forth back and forth. Wordlessly, they formed a plan together- they would hide the Televisions, somehow. They had to. They just had to.

That night, after the carers had all left, they got out of their cots. All the children slept in the same room, locked inside a long concrete tunnel, with no windows.The only difference between day and night for the children, was at night the carers weren't there.

Ignoring the hums, and the crys of the other children, Polina hobbled, Donka crawled, Lala and Towotei walked, and all together, they slowly pulled the four televisions of the shelves- now all they had to do was hide the magic flashing boxes. But that was the problem, there was nowhere to hide them- other than wire cots the room was empty.

The children looked at each other, distressed and scared. They couldn't hide them anywhere! they couldn't even climb out of the window to freedom, they were all too weak to climb.

But then, Donka had an idea, he looked at the others knowingly, and put his stick-thin green-tinted fingers to his mouth.

Of course! The only place the children could ever hide something from the other, bigger, stronger, older children was within. They had all hidden toys by swallowing them, and choking it up later. It was disgusting, but they lived in a disgusting place.

The televisions were only small- small enough to fit inside their stomach, but they were still too big to eat- what would they do?

The next day a horrific sight met the carers; the room had a heavy stench of blood, all the children were crying and moaning as usual- all but four. In the middle of the room, lay Polina, Donka, Lala and Towotei, they'd each clawed out their own stomach, the blood-stained televisions sat inside their ripped out belly's, their intestines, kidneys and other vital organs spilled out onto the filthy grey floor, staining it red. Flies buzzed around the room, landing on the organs and laying their eggs in them. Their hands were all covered in blood. Under their finger nails bits of flesh were stuck. The children's eyes were rolled back, unblinking even when flies landed on them. And their faces were still pulled into that smile, that permanent smile.

The carers shrieked and fled the scene, the guilt of leading four children- all under seven- to claw out their own stomach weighed heavy on their conscience.

This happened in 1995, and it could of been a world-wide story, but the Bulgarian government were careful to hide the scandal so people didn't know just how awful their institutions were. Very few knew the story of the four children who scratched out their stomach, but one person did- a creative director called Anne Wood.

You might be wondering why someone, anyone would turn such a tragedy into a silly program for little children- that's sick, isn't it? The way I see it, the Teletubbies all live together in a magical dome, they can laugh and play in the beautiful fields of Teletubbie land, with rabbits and flowers, something they could never do when they were trapped within the institute. I think the creator of Teletubbies wanted to make a place were the children could be happy, a place were they could laugh play learn and explore, and they could have tellys indented in their stomach without dying for it.