Why you shouldn't say no-no to Noo-Noo (Teletubbies)

Member Name: English Lady

Product:	Teletubbies
Date:	31/07/03 (457 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun, keeps baby quite for 30 mins!, educational

Disadvantages: It'll drive you round the bend!

As I write this, my 21-month-old daughter is wearing her tinky-winky slippers, holding onto her talking laa-laa doll, watching one of her teletubby videos. Beth LOVES the Teletubbies!

Ok so it is not my choice of television stimulation but I do love the Teletubbies. They are bright, smiley and educational and they keep my daughter quiet for the whole length of an episode!

For those of you who do not have young children and have not had the dubious pleasure of watching an episode here is a rundown of what is involved.


There are 4 Teletubbies; they are big chubby and brightly coloured aliens with big smiley faces, a square telly on their tummies and different shaped Antennae's!


Tinky-Winky


Is the tallest of the Teletubbies, he has a triangular Ariel and is purple in colour. He carries round a big red handbag, which is his favourite thing.


Dipsy

Is slightly smaller than Tinky-winky. He is acid green in colour and his Arial is straight because his favourite thing is a cow print top hat!


Laa-Laa

Is the middle sized tubby, She is bright yellow and her favourite thing is a big orange ball.


Po

Is the baby tubby, she is fire engine red and her favourite thing is a little red and blue scooter.


This band of happy chappies live in a hill. The weather is nearly always sunny in teletubby land, and the sunshine contains the face of a young baby who often giggles and coos along with the action.


Teletubbies dance and sing and do mundane things like eat and sleep and of course the play just like children do!

A classic episode has some kind of theme and a moment where one of the Teletubbies tummy lights up and we watch a bit of film about a young child doing something like going to the park or making something or helping a grown up in someway. You always see these twice. Hence the famous teletubby phras
e ?Again Again?


That is the bit that bores me to tears, but Beth can be entranced by some of the film clips and happily watch them twice through, whereas with others she gets really bored. It just shows that every child has there own likes and dislikes!


After this there usually is a tale which the narrator always starts ?One day in teletubby land...?

Sometimes there are computer-animated bits, there is an animal parade, or Little Bo Peep looking for her sheep, a little tap dancing bear in a carousel or even 3 big ships sailing on a sea.


Each episode ends with the Teletubbies being told its time to go, they wave from behind a hill and then pop down behind it, then when they?ve all said bye bye they jump up and go

?Boo?


The narrator says ?nooooo?

And they go through it again but this time they stay down.


My husband said to me the other day


?Aren?t you worried? Our daughter has learnt to speak from the Teletubbies!?


You see Beth says hiya, bye-bye, hat, bag, ball, big hug and nooooo!

I told him not to worry, that these are words Beth would have picked up without the Teletubbies because they are the types of words young children pick up on and learn to say first.
My daughter also counts along when the Teletubbies jump out of their hole (although one is the only number that sounds right) and she has learnt the colour yellow from using the Teletubby website.

My daughter doesn?t speak like a teletubby and she watches a lot of the programme.


One of my pet peeves is that everyone says that the Teletubbies not speaking Standard English is a bad example for the children watching it.


How many babies do you know who speak Standard English with every word? Of course they don?t! They are learning to speak and words are garbled. The Teletubbies speak like a young 2/3-year-old child,
Which is w
hy so many children relate to the programme.

The narrator says everything first, or translates what the Teletubbies are saying. So the children are hearing proper English and learning as much from that as from the Teletubbies themselves.


The Teletubbies deal with things that babies have to deal with, like making a mess, falling down and hurting themselves, sharing, making friends and learning to speak.

They are very loving. Several times in a programme the narrator will say

?Teletubbies love each other very much?

And then the Teletubbies will share in a ?big hug? where they all cuddle up together.

Loving, caring, sharing and having fun and being happy are all things we want our children to learn or be able to do, all these things are contained in the Teletubbies programmes.




There is a ton of Teletubbies merchandising out there and I recommend the videos and the books, as they are well put together, enjoyable and educational.


I also recommend that you check out the BBC?s Teletubbies website. It is a fantastic website for children.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/teletubbies.


There are Nursery rhymes, pictures to print out and colour, Teletubbies screen savers etc and a big section full of child friendly games. My daughter loves the games; they vary in skill level so there will be something for children of all ages.


My daughter loves the ?more than one? game, which she can play by just pressing the space bar. Each time she taps the space bar tubby jumps up on the screen and says hello. When four of them have jumped up the space bar then makes them disappear as they wave and say bye-bye!

There is a noo-noo game (oh how did I forget noo-noo? he is the Hoover and he sucks up all the mess the Teletubbies make) and in it you have to use the mouse to help noo-noo suck up lots of tubby toast.


There i
s Beth?s current favourite which is ?tubby custard bubbles? you click on the tubby custard machine and it blows bubbles, which if you click on them with the mouse go ?pop? and burst. When all the bubbles burst Noo-noo comes in and cleans it all up!


You can also ride Po?s scooter, read along stories with laa-laa or Tinky-Winky, play ?head, shoulders, knees and toes? with Dipsy and Laa-laa and also you can help little Bo peep find her noisy sheep!




There is also a new phenomenon called ?Teletubbies everywhere? which doesn?t include the annoying ?again again? bits it just has the Teletubbies doing various things and one clip with children in it, more often than not they are speaking a foreign language. Beth especially enjoys these episodes.


So I conclude then that the Teletubbies are good educational fun for pre-school aged children!

Now I am off for a bowl of tubby custard as my reward for writing this op!

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