facts about the invention of
Teletubbies by Anne
Wood and Andrew Davenport in 1997.
|Experienced and award-winning
childrens television producers Anne Wood and Andrew Davenport developed
"Teletubbies" after extensive informal interviews with nursery school teachers,
linguists, and young children. This research was conducted to ensure the effectiveness of
"Teletubbies" in teaching preschoolers skills that can contribute to school
readiness and success.
|"Teletubbies" is supported by a
comprehensive outreach effort for parents and caregivers to introduce the series
concepts and their role in the effective education of our youngest viewers. The Teletubbies are Tinky Winky,
Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po. They are the 4 Teletubbies, they live over the hills and far away
in a place, a very magical land which is a part modern technological land and part a sort
of nursery rhyme land where magical things can happen.
|They have lots of friends
with them in Teletubbyland, their best friend of all is, is the Noo Noo. The Noo Noo is a
very useful friend to have because hes their vacuum cleaner character who goes
around cleaning up after them and sorts out the Tubbytronic Superdome which is the place
where they live, and keeps everything spick and span in there. They live a very, very
happy life, a very active life.
They run about, they play, they dance, they, eat and
drink tubby custard and tubby toast. They go to bed when they feel tired, they wake up
when they are ready to wake up, they live to all intensive purposes a normal happy life,
and from a childs point of view quite an idyllic life.
Ther are four people responsible for the amazing
success that Teletubbies has achieced. They are Anna Home from BBC (who commissioned a new children's show),
Anne Wood from Ragdoll Productions (series co-creator and head of Ragdoll Productions), Andy Davenport from Ragdoll
Productions (series co-creator, the Teletubbies writer and a trained speech therapist),
and Alice Cahn from PBS (director of children's programs, responsible for bringing
Teletubbies to the USA).
According to Andy
Davenport this is how the idea for Teletubbies come about. Its always difficult to
say where the idea comes from because it insinuates that there is only one idea, that
Teletubbies just came you know like that as an idea. It was a product of an awful lot of
work, with myself and Ann coming from different directions, with different things we were
working on at the time, and different pre-occupations at the time. And and its only
once you start working together that the whole thing develops out of your, your past
But from my point of view, I had worked at Ragdoll
for sometime and Ann had made it known that she was open to receiving ideas for programmes
and at that stage we were talking a lot about potential for a programme for older
children. And so I presented Ann with basically, my own version of a format for a sitcom
for 7 year olds. There were lots of things going on in that format which which Im
sure I wouldnt like to be reminded of. But two of the characters in there were these
two space men who lived at the bottom of someones garden in a magic wood. And they
were basically NASA spacemen.
One of the things that fascinated me about NASA
spacemen is that theres all this high technology involved in putting a spaceman
inside a space suit and sending him up into space and landing him on the moon and
its the most advanced technological thing that ever happens. And then when they
climb out of this space pod thats landed on the moon what did they look like but a
little toddler toddling around a new world for the first time. And there is a sort of
absurd kind of enjoyable irony in that I suppose.
And so I was trying to work on the basis that these
spacemen were in fact all dressed up like this because they were going out into the world
to discover new things, and it was very important. So what was going on with these
characters was that they would be presented everyday with a different thing which to a
child watching it would be very obvious; because it would be something like a standard
lamp or a hoover or something like that. And these spacemen would use all the powers of
their deduction to work out what these things were. And there were different characters,
one was slightly more courageous than the other, and the other one wanted to stand back
and that. So these two characters were in there, and and they were very easily surprised
by things and fell over all the time, and when they were worried about things they hugged
And these two characters as I say were, were part of
what was a much bigger format. And so I when I was showing this to Ann, Ann seemed to home
in on these two characters, she seemed to like these two more than anything else.
Toys from The Great Idea Finder
ON THE BOOKSHELF:
Happy Teletubbies (Out of print.)
Paperback: 22 pages / Scholastic Paperbacks; (October 1998)
Meet Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa, and Po, the adorable technological babies with TV
their tummies. The characters in these story books are from the first PBS television
specifically for young children, ages one and up.
PBS Companion: A History of Public Television
by David Stewart, David Steward / Hardcover - 224 pages / TV Books Inc - (May 1999)
Details the history of the landmark programming and creative personalities in the
development of public television--from "Masterpiece Theatre" to "Sesame
ON THE SCREEN:
Teletubbies: Blue Sky: Fantastic Friends and Springtime Surprises
DVD / PBS / 58 min. on 1 disc / Item no: TTUB622 / Less than $14.99
Blue sky! It's Springtime in Teletubbyland and the sun is shining! The
Teletubbies go for a fun walk outside. Then, they fly a kite in the wind. The
Teletubbies love to watch the clouds. It's a day to come outside and play with
Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po!
ON THE WEB:
Time for Teletubbies
The official home for Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa Laa and Po. Games, activities and
information for pre-school Teletubby... The BBC Education Teletubbies Website. BIG HUG the
story of Teletubbies
Teletubbies at PBS Online
Teletubbies is a celebration of children's play. In a world of technology, this series
introduces young childrenages one and aboveto the wonders and magic of
high-tech in a safe and friendly way. Public Boadcsting System Teletubbies web site.
Anne Wood founded Ragdoll Production's in 1984 with the ethos that 'Ragdoll Works For
Children.' Since then, Ragdoll has produced more than 1,000 programmes aimed at young
Teletubbies co-creator and writer. Andrew is the sole writer of the first 365 episodes of
Teletubbies produced, making him probably the most prolific and most translated children's
writer in TV.
DID YOU KNOW?:
- Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po are the Teletubbies, stars
of a major daily pre-school television show for BBC starting on Monday March 31 1997.
Developed by Anne Wood, Creative Director of Ragdoll Productions and Andrew
- For the PBS broadcast, several significant changes were made
to adapt the series to American needs and tastes. For example, the Narrator and Voice
Trumpets have American accents. These changes make Teletubbies in America uniquely our own
while retaining the elements that have made it such a hit in Britain.
Teletubbies characters and logo copyright Ragdoll Productions (UK) Ltd
1996. Teletubbies, Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa, Po and Noo-noo are
trade marks of Ragdoll Productions (UK) Ltd.
Reference Sources in BOLD Type
page revised February, 2005.
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