Bagpuss

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Bagpuss is a popular 1974 UK children's television series, made by Smallfilms. It is fondly and widely remembered, despite the fact that only 13 episodes were ever made.

Bagpuss and the mice

Each programme would begin the same way: Through a series of sepia photographs, we are told of a little girl named Emily (played by Emily Firmin, the daughter of the illustrator Peter Firmin), who owned a shop. The shop didn't sell anything, however - instead, Emily would find lost and broken things and display them in the window of the shop, so that their owners could one day come and collect them. She would leave the object in front of her favourite stuffed toy - a large, saggy, pink and white striped cat named Bagpuss. She would then recite a verse:

Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss

Old Fat Furry Catpuss

Wake up and look at this thing that I bring

Wake up, be bright, be golden and light

Bagpuss, oh hear what I sing

When Emily had left, Bagpuss would wake up. The programme shifted from sepia to colour stop motion film, and various toys in the shop would also come to life: Gabriel the toad and a rag doll called Madeleine. The wooden woodpecker bookend became the drily academic Professor Yaffle (distantly based, it is said, on the philosopher Bertrand Russell), while the mice carved on the side of the "mouse organ" (a small mechanical pipe organ which played rolls of music) woke up and scurried around, singing in high-pitched voices. Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner provided the voices of Madeleine and Gabriel respectively, and put together and performed all the proper songs. All the other voices (including the narrator and one out-of-tune mouse) were provided by Oliver Postgate.

The toys would discuss what the new object was; someone (usually Madeleine) would tell a story related to the object (shown in an animated thought-bubble over Bagpuss's head), often with a song, which would be accompanied by Gabriel on the banjo (which often sounded a lot more like a guitar), and then the mice, singing in high pitched squeaky harmony as they worked, would mend the broken object. The newly mended thing would then be put in the Shop window, so that whoever had lost it would see it as they went past, and could come in and claim it. Then Bagpuss would start yawning again, and as he fell asleep the colour faded to sepia and they all became toys again.

Most of the stories and songs used in the series are based on folk songs and fairy tales from around the world.

In 1999 it came first place in a BBC poll selecting the nations' favourite children's show. It also came fourth in the 2001 Channel 4 poll The 100 Greatest Kids' TV shows.

Bagpuss has now retired to the Rupert Bear Museum in Canterbury, UK, part of the Museum of Canterbury.

[edit] Episodes

The titles of the thirteen episodes each refer in some way to the object Emily found.

The Ship in a Bottle - "Where would it sail to?" (first shown 12 February 1974),
The Owls of Athens - A dirty rag that reveals a picture once cleaned (first shown 19 February 1974),
The Frog Princess - assorted jewels, which initially are thought to represent a cat and mouse but which Gabriel decides were the crown jewels of a frog princess (first shown 26 February 1974),
The Ballet Shoe - put to inventive use by the mice, and the subject of a very silly song about its possible use as a rowing boat (first shown 5 March 1974),
The Hamish - a tartan pin cushion (first shown 12 March 1974),
The Wise Man - a broken figurine of a Chinaman, claimed by Yaffle to be the very wise Ling-Po (first shown 19 March 1974),
The Elephant - missing its ears (first shown 26 March 1974),
The Mouse Mill - demonstrated by the mice to make chocolate biscuits out of butterbeans and breadcrumbs. This turns out to be a mischievous fraud (first shown 2 April 1974),
The Giant - a statuette (first shown 9 April 1974),
Old Man's Beard - a tangly plant (first shown 16 April 1974),
The Fiddle - which plays itself (first shown 23 April 1974),
Flying - a basket which the mice attempt to turn into a flying machine (first shown 30 April 1974),
Uncle Feedle - a piece of cloth, decided to be a house for a rag doll (first shown 7 May 1974).