But I Was Captain Bagpuss
Tuesday, January 6, 2009 18:25
Bagpuss had tits in it! Underage teenage girls’ tits. Really, it did. Look.
Not in the same sense that Captain Pugwash had characters called Seaman Staines, Master Bates and Roger the Cabin Boy, which was a bullshit sense.
Rather, it’s in the sense that Bagpuss really did have drawings of jailbait boobs in it, and you can go over to Youtube and watch them for yourself.
I’m sure I am merely one of many thirtysomethings inspired by the death last month of Oliver Postgate, co-creator of Bagpuss and many other fine kids’ TV shows of the 1970s, to recently remind themselves of that old saggy pink pussy.
I wasn’t born when Bagpuss was first on telly, but I must have caught the repeats during the first few years of my life, because the opening sequence still fills me with an infantile sensation of both comfort and haunting dread.
The sepia stills, the minimalist plucking of the theme tune’s strings, the almost nihilistic nature of the premise, the wistful, avuncular narrator, the downright scary stop-motion woodpecker, the frog with throat cancer.
It just freaks me out. I’m sure I’m not alone.
But I couldn’t remember any of the actual post-credits content of the shows, not until I watched this episode on Youtube over Christmas: part one, part two.
But I was Captain Bagpuss,
I knew the thing to do.
I tied a pole to the end of the string
And baited it with glue.That way I caught a mermaid,
A pretty child was she.
She sat on my lap in the bosun’s cap,
And we all drank China tea.
Bagpuss, in his inaugural episode, had an underage girl sitting on his lap with her tits out.
Try to imagine any way this storyline could feature in any kids show made in 2009.
It might be illegal to even view this stuff now, at least in some backwaters, come to think of it. If a guy can get convicted for possessing indecent images of The Simpsons…
I feel very old.
My nephew Bob and I watched The Wombles today. Not the original 1970s cartoon, rather the 1997 version, updated by the right-on BBC after it was told it had to be relevant to “urban” people but before it realised that caricatures aren’t particularly helpful.
Did you know there was a black Womble?
No kidding. Here he is. He’s called Stepney. He has dreads and he’s from the East End. He’s even wearing a Rasta sweater, just to drive the point home.
I also thought I detected a slight East Asian accent on one of the other new Wombles, but I couldn’t hear it properly over Bob’s bloodcurdling, terrified screams.




















