Early morning kid's TV meets the Wicker Man. (Teletubbies)

Member Name: hewhoisme

Product:	Teletubbies
Date:	02/09/09 (28 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It makes the stranger things in life seem slightly more plauisble by comparison

Disadvantages: It's downright terrifying

I'll be the first to admit that children's TV has always been a bit weird. Take the cherished childhood memories of the previous generation, who were brought up watching a psychedelic stop motion roundabout ride, a bunch of whistling space rodents, and the immortal Mr Noseybonk, a character who seems only a few tenuous steps away from committing mass murder. But that was nothing, and I mean nothing, compared to the surrealistic abominations our generation has been raised on.

The Teletubbies is set in a livid and slightly creepy world, dominated by rolling green hills and four giggling biomechanical nightmares with insipid names, communicating with an intelligible mixture of vowel sounds and maniacal laughter. The Teletubbies, which look like beanie baby has been forced to mate with a television set, spend the majority of the time running around like buffoons and tormenting a sentient vacuum cleaner, ensuring to leave enough time to watch random children carry out everyday chores on each other's stomachs, and partaking in way too many group hugs to be considered healthy. Adding to the general weirdness of the show is surreal nature of the landscape, which is presided over by a baby that has been inexplicably trapped in the sun , and an oppressive overlord that barks orders through a series of metal mouthpieces that appear without warning. All in all, it's pretty much represents the genocide of reality.

On the surface the Teletubbies seems like a harmless children's morning show, and knowing me I'm probably reading too much into it, but there is something about it that is downright disturbing. It might be eerie post-apocalyptic tones of the show, which seems to represent a dystopian future where all intelligent life has been mutated into a collection of insane voodoo dolls overruled by an unseen dictator, or the sickening cheeriness of the tubbies themselves, which seems so forced I half expect them to break out into a satanic blood orgy at any moment. I might have grabbed the wrong end of the stick here, but I always thought that children's television was designed to entertain and to educate, whereas the Teletubbies just seems to terrify and vegetate alternately. Whilst the shows of yesteryear might have been full-on trippy, if and when I actually have kids, I'd more rather that they watch re-runs of Bagpuss than have their minds pulverised by David Lynch's stint in toddler's TV.

Summary: Be afraid, be very afraid. Eh-oh!