RIP Oliver Postgate

[pcolbeck]

Warning! Bad taste alert!

(click to show/hide)

When Oliver Postgate dies, do all his friends die?

Apologies for that. Blame Dez.

I hope not or the millions of us who though we never actually met him consider him one of our greatest childhood friends are not long for this world.

[Wowbagger]

Professor Yaffle is a role model.  I can do pompous!

Apparently Prof. Yaffle was based on Bertrand Russell!

Oliver Postgate - Creator of Bagpuss, The Clangers, Ivor the Engine and other Childrens TV classics is a pretty compelling website.

[Really Ancien]

Surely 'Snagglepuss' and 'My Mother the Car' formed a large part of all our upbringings.

Damon.

[clarion]

Professor Yaffle is a role model.  I can do pompous!

Apparently Prof. Yaffle was based on Bertrand Russell!

Oliver Postgate - Creator of Bagpuss, The Clangers, Ivor the Engine and other Childrens TV classics is a pretty compelling website.

That never occurred to me, but it's so true!

Looks like him; sounds like him; talks like him.  In fact, Oliver would have known Russell very well from his anti-nuclear activity.

[Rhys W]

This is stated in his obituary in today's Guardian in fact. There's also a reprint of an article he wrote on the demise of children's tv (from 2003), and a big feature in G2.

The upshot of reading these is I have just bought all 26 episodes of The Clangers from amazon for the princely sum of £8.85! 

[Jaded]

From his website:

So does it matter?

Yes it does! The Head of Acquisitions at the BBC outlined the Corporation's policy in a recent radio programme. She told us:

"The children of today are more used to the up-market, faster-moving things" and that "in today's hugely competitive schedule we are up against about another twelve to fourteen children's channels and we have got to stand out."
As a policy that is, in my considered view, almost criminally preposterous.

Firstly because it isn't true. There is no such thing as 'the children of today'. Children are not 'of today'. They come afresh into this world in a steady stream and, apart from a few in-built instincts, they are blank pages happily waiting to be written on.
Secondly because it simply isn't true that children have to have what they are 'used to'. They do want programmes that are new to them, programmes that are original and mind-stretching. They just aren't being offered them.

Let me give you an example. As part of the same radio programme one of our old film series: Noggin and the Firecake, was shown to a primary school. It was heavy stuff, clumsy and slow by 'today's standards', but my goodness how eagerly the children followed and enjoyed it! At the end they could gleefully recount whole sections of the story, and when asked if they would like more they shouted with one voice: "YES!"

Lastly, the policy is tragically preposterous because there is simply no need or reason for the BBC to 'compete and stand out'. It is a publicly funded body and it should know that feeding the minds of young people is a seriousloving responsibility. We ourselves have passed this responsibility on to the BBC and it has no business leaving it to the mercies of a money-grubbing market.

[clarion]

Just been watching some Smallfilms stuff on Youtube.  Only one episode of Pogles, I'm afraid, and it's a bit barmy.  But Bagpuss & Ivor are simply delightful, even if nothing ever happens much.

Clangers is such a positive programme.  The messages about the environment, the value of respect for diversity and co-operation are so lightly done, but are core to the whole thing.

There's also three parts of a documentary (narrated by that other wonderfully avuncular voice of childhood, Bernard Cribbins) about Smallfilms, with both Postgate and Firmin taking delight in rediscovering the models they had used for their classic creations.

It describes Clangers as 'bordering on the surreal'.  I never noticed it anywhere near any border!

[Noodley]

Why did he stop doing stuff ages ago? 

[Wowbagger]

It crossed my mind, thinking back to the BNP Membership List thread, how those people who wanted to tar CND members and lefties with the same brush as BNP membership would have been banning Oliver Postgate! I can hear the outrage now: CND Commie nets top BBC Children's job!

[clarion]

I think he was on the Redwatch list

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

  But Bagpuss & Ivor are simply delightful, even if nothing ever happens much.

Loads of things happen! Ivor goes to the seaside in one, and he has dragons nesting in his fireboxbit (technical term), and now and again there's a donkey on the line. And Bagpuss - well, things never stop - mice singing, woodpeckers nagging, people bringing things into the shop which the mice have to wash and slosh and mend and tend and make them clean clean clean. It's a hive of industry.

[clarion]

Oliver being discussed on the obits programme on R4 right now.

[Rig of Jarkness]

Bagpuss was my favourite but I loved them all

[Adam]

Why did he stop doing stuff ages ago? 

I think it was more the BBC deciding it wasn't in line with their "yoof" culture image of children's TV.

[fuzzy]

I remember fondly Bagpuss, Ivor The Engine, Nogin the Nog and The Clangers. I don't remember Pogles Wood.

I don't know what it was about his programmes, I just loved them. In fact, if I were to wander into a room today, aged 46, where any one of the above programmes was on the tellybox, I would be entranced and stuck in front of the screen again.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The only ones I remember were the Clangers and Ivor the Engine. Bagpuss was something I never quite saw the point of, somehow. But the Clangers were my most absolutely favouritest thing on TV. They were re-released on video and TV about 15 years ago and I remember thinking then, this stuff is so surreal, how it could not have affected the the way we grew up? In a positive way, I feel. I read in a newspaper that Ivor the Engine dates back to 1951! Perhaps that was a typo. Anyway, the dragon was a wonderful character. The same article made the point that in the 70s and 80s there were only a few TV channels, so all kids watched the same things. Then at school the next day you would talk about them. Today, with satellite and cable, TV programmes aren't a shared culture in the same way.

[rogerzilla]

Some surprisingly tasteful tributes among the usual NSFW stuff on b3ta:

b3ta.com challenge: oliver postgate

[clarion]

Reading Oliver Postgate's autobiography. 'Seeing Things', I discover that his parents, Daisy & Raymond (yes, the Raymond) Postgate, joined the whole family on a CTC membership (wonder if the membership dept was as efficient in those days), and they went on an enjoyable cycle tour of France in 1939, conscious that this was probably their last chance for a while.  He said he & his older brother would dash ahead and wait for Daisy & Ray at a cafe, sipping mildly alcoholic drinks, which they knew their parents would pay for without quibbling.

Not only but also: later in 1939, the 12yo Oliver and his brother cycled from Chichester to Dartington Hall to go to school (so presumably with a lot of luggage, and certainly carrying gas masks).

I'll keep reading on, and let you know if there's any more in the same vein.

[Rhys W]

My Clangers DVD arrived today! 

[citoyen]

Raymond (yes, the Raymond) Postgate

Crikey! I didn't realise that. I can't think of many father-son combos who are both heroes of mine, but Raymond and Oliver would definitely be top of the list.

I used to work for The Good Food Guide - long after RP's time, but I like to think I was doing my bit to keep his legacy going.

d.

[citoyen]

Oh yeah, and Charlie Brooker's tribute to Oliver Postgate on Screenwipe this week made me cry. The bastard.

d.

[LEE]

Oh yeah, and Charlie Brooker's tribute to Oliver Postgate on Screenwipe this week made me cry. The bastard.

d.

He absolutely got it spot on didn't he?

[clarion]

Raymond (yes, the Raymond) Postgate

Crikey! I didn't realise that. I can't think of many father-son combos who are both heroes of mine, but Raymond and Oliver would definitely be top of the list.

...

Not only but also, his maternal grandfather was George Lansbury.

[Adam]

BBC4 - Tuesday 22nd December 2009 at 8 pm - Oliver Postgate - A Life in Small Films.

 

[Thor]

Thanks! Set to record.