In the 1990s the Teletubbies were the weirdest way you could spend 20 minutes: stranger than David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, scarier than David Beckham’s haircut, more existentially unmooring than Country House by Blur. The BBC had bottled surrealism and was feeding it to our toddlers.
A generation later, Dipsy, Tinky Winky, Laa-Laa and Po have been reborn on Netflix. Alas, their new incarnations lack the barking-bonkers quality that made Teletubbies such a phenomenon the first time around.
One stumbling block is that the new series is largely CGI-based. And so it wants for the visceral eeriness of 1990s vintage Tubbies, featuring ‘real’ plastic periscopes, rolling hills and light urban rail, aka the custard train
One stumbling block is that the new series is largely CGI-based. And so it wants for the visceral eeriness of 1990s vintage Tubbies – filmed at Sweet Knowle Farm, in Warwickshire, and featuring “real” plastic periscopes, rolling hills and light urban rail (aka the custard train).
As we are introduced to Dipsy, Tinky Winky, Laa-Laa and Po – all portrayed by the original cast – it is increasingly obvious that Netflix has decided to make feelgood children’s TV with educational elements. This runs completely contrary to the spirit of the original, which had the dual purpose of charming kids while triggering lingering dread in their parents.
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The most notorious example was the “lion and bear” episode, which the BBC yanked from the schedules and re-edited after complaints and a tabloid frenzy. Here, a dead-eyed woodcut lion pursues a bear. The big cat has murder in its eyes. The Teletubbies sit and cheer as it stalks its prey. Kids on the whole loved it. Older viewers felt the lion was shrivelling their soul with its vacant demon glare.
There are no demon eyes this time around. Instead, each 15-minute instalment features an archetypal kids’ TV presenter leading children on a singalong (shot largely in a green-screen studio in Twickenham). There is also a CGI re-creation of the custard train. It’s all topped off with narration from Tituss Burgess, the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star, who adopts a soothing British accent.
The new Teletubbies is fine as preschool filler. But it will neither haunt your dreams nor make you wonder if you’re trapped in a waking vision in which lush hills stretch into the distance and a sentient vacuum cleaner is giving hot pursuit. You wonder why Netflix bothered.
