Small Clanger, 1968, made by Peter and Joan Firmin, at the V&A Museum of Childhood, London.
“I like this little chap because even though he’s a mischievous mouse-like alien creature who communicates via a series of whistling noises, he has some human characteristics and a particularly great outfit.
While putting this exhibition together, I made something of a pilgrimage to meet the artist Peter Firmin at the farm where he and the late Oliver Postgate made 1960s and 1970s children’s television favourites such as the Clangers, Bagpuss, Pogles Wood and Noggin the Nog.
His wife, Joan, knitted the Clangers’ bodies and she told me that some of their clothes had been inspired by an old picture of Twiggy. I searched for the photo and came across one in which the famous model wore a metal dress by Paco Rabanne.
It’s nice to think that Small Clanger’s brass armour was based on a design by the enfant terrible of 1960s French fashion.
Postgate and Firmin’s company, Smallfilms, had been making programmes with paper cutouts and puppet animations for 10 years when the BBC asked them to produce a colour series with a space theme for the run-up to the moon landings.
There was also a desire to move away from the more didactic children’s TV of the time towards an emphasis on encouraging young viewers to open their minds and ask questions rather than simply be supervised to make things.
The pair looked through some of their old notebooks and found a Noggin the Nog story, which briefly featured a character called Moon Mouse. Postgate took the idea and created the Clanger family, who lived on a planet populated by strange creatures such as Iron Chicken, Soup Dragon and Froglets.
The format also allowed Postgate to explore some of his favourite themes such as technology, environmental wastefulness and the human qualities of friendship and empathy.
Interestingly, all the scripts were originally written in English, with Postgate later translating the dialogue into Clanger language on a swanee whistle.
His accompanying voiceover made Postgate an avuncular presence, holding your hand as you entered a different world. As a child in the 1980s, I watched the Clangers endlessly on repeat and those kind tones, with just a hint of irony, always let you know that everything was going to be OK.
People never forget the television programmes they grew up with. I had never seen the Victoria and Albert Museum’s conservation studios so busy than at the time we were preparing this show; all sorts of important people found excuses to pop in because they had heard that Bagpuss was there.”
The Clangers, Bagpuss & Co, runs until 9 October
“I like this little chap because even though he’s a mischievous mouse-like alien creature who communicates via a series of whistling noises, he has some human characteristics and a particularly great outfit.
While putting this exhibition together, I made something of a pilgrimage to meet the artist Peter Firmin at the farm where he and the late Oliver Postgate made 1960s and 1970s children’s television favourites such as the Clangers, Bagpuss, Pogles Wood and Noggin the Nog.
His wife, Joan, knitted the Clangers’ bodies and she told me that some of their clothes had been inspired by an old picture of Twiggy. I searched for the photo and came across one in which the famous model wore a metal dress by Paco Rabanne.
It’s nice to think that Small Clanger’s brass armour was based on a design by the enfant terrible of 1960s French fashion.
Postgate and Firmin’s company, Smallfilms, had been making programmes with paper cutouts and puppet animations for 10 years when the BBC asked them to produce a colour series with a space theme for the run-up to the moon landings.
There was also a desire to move away from the more didactic children’s TV of the time towards an emphasis on encouraging young viewers to open their minds and ask questions rather than simply be supervised to make things.
The pair looked through some of their old notebooks and found a Noggin the Nog story, which briefly featured a character called Moon Mouse. Postgate took the idea and created the Clanger family, who lived on a planet populated by strange creatures such as Iron Chicken, Soup Dragon and Froglets.
The format also allowed Postgate to explore some of his favourite themes such as technology, environmental wastefulness and the human qualities of friendship and empathy.
Interestingly, all the scripts were originally written in English, with Postgate later translating the dialogue into Clanger language on a swanee whistle.
His accompanying voiceover made Postgate an avuncular presence, holding your hand as you entered a different world. As a child in the 1980s, I watched the Clangers endlessly on repeat and those kind tones, with just a hint of irony, always let you know that everything was going to be OK.
People never forget the television programmes they grew up with. I had never seen the Victoria and Albert Museum’s conservation studios so busy than at the time we were preparing this show; all sorts of important people found excuses to pop in because they had heard that Bagpuss was there.”
The Clangers, Bagpuss & Co, runs until 9 October