The Toddler is outraged, furious and in despair. The BBC has scrapped its evening transmission of the children’s programme, In The Night Garden, only showing an episode during the day. He is lost without it. And apparently he is not alone as more than 60 parents have recently signed a petition on the Facebook website calling for it to be reinstated.
One of The Toddler’s first words was, “Piggle.” It meant nothing to us but we cooed over how clever he was and misinterpreted it for ‘Cuddle’. It was my six-year-old daughter who one day said, “He is saying Iggle Piggle.” Iggle Piggle is the rather strange, blue main character from the programme. The next word he added to his vocabulary was, “Ninky Nonk.” This strange new language slightly worried me and prompted me to take a closer look.
In The Night Garden was created by Anne Wood and Andy Davenport who also wrote the successful Teletubbies. It took five years to make and cost £14.5 million. An astonishing 500,000 children sit downto watch the programme each day, mostly between the ages of 1 and 5 years. The Night Garden is supposed to be a place of safety and security for children, full of flowers and happy toys. Apparently it makes children feel secure and happy in a dream-like state between waking and sleeping. It certainly did just that. As I observed my children watching it, they seemed mesmirised by this strange world of psychedelic toy characters who seem to say nothing more than their own names. The programme reminded me of the 1970’s Magic Roundabout, but with more limited language. Apart from timid Iggle Piggle and his red blanket, other characters featured are Upsy Daisy who inflates her skirt to dance around squeaking, “Daisy doo” and the extraordinary Makka Pakka who has a love of stones and rides around on his ‘Og-pog’ carrying his ‘Uff-uff’ – need I say more.
The programme if full of rhymes and repetitive words, something that the creators say is critical for children’s development at this age. However, I am a little concerned about the Toddler repeatedly saying, Pip-pip, onk-onk’ instead of ‘Goodbye’. This was not the kind of English I wanted him to learn.
I gently probed my older two children on the programme’s appeal. “It is relaxing,” says the six-year-old. “It makes me sleepy,” adds the four-year-old. Well, perhaps I could overcome the language issue when it had this effect on them but In The ‘Day’ Garden was not quite so appealing. After much deliberation I joined the campaign on the Toddler’s behalf calling for the evening return of Iggle Piggle. However, last night I heard The Toddler chanting to himself in his cot. As I put my ear to the door, I was aghast to hear, “Makka Pakka, akka wakka, micka, makka, moo!”
