The Teletubbies, those cute and funny characters distinguished by their respective colors: Tinky Winky (purple), Dipsy (green), Laa-Laa (yellow), and Po (red), marked the childhood of children who grew up in the late 90s and early 2000s. A show that fused elements of reality and fiction! The Teletubbies was broadcast on the BBC and was produced by Ragdoll Productions.
The program was composed of almost 500 episodes that remained in the memory of the now adults belonging to the millennial generation; just the nostalgia they emit was the reason why the streaming platform Netflix, decided to work on a new version of the program that has had a surprising welcoming.
Taking into account the success, let’s dig into the story behind the children’s show that provoked tenderness in some children while causing chills in others.
The Story Behind the Teletubbies
According to the official description of the show: “the Teletubbies are creatures created by subway machines by humans before they became extinct.” The characters are covered in colorful fur and have cat-like noses, as well as antennae and a “screen” on their stomach. They live in a covered dome in the middle of a huge garden, a place called the ‘Tubbytronic Superdome.’
Due to its appearance and plot, although innocent, many people (despite the passage of time) are still wondering about the story or inspiration of such a program, that although childish, was extremely creepy for some.
What’s the Inspiration Behind the Teletubbies?
When we are under the influence of alcohol we can say crazy things or even think of impossible things, perhaps that was the case with one of the creators of the Teletubbies, and that, according to some British media during the presentation party of the program already approved by the BBC, the director, Andrew Davenport had too many drinks and ended up telling a strange story from which came the inspiration for the colorful characters.
Davenport related that when he was about 13 years old, during his school years, he was part of a secret military experiment called ‘Mider Operation’ in which he and other teenagers were put in a kind of sphere of a strange material, like a liquid plastic in which there was a light that blurred his vision until he fainted.
According to the same creator and director, when he opened his eyes he was in a very different world as if it were another dimension where he met very strange creatures. They were beings that had bodies similar to giant rats, with metallic clothes and antennas on their heads, approximately two meters long. They also had some kind of screens in their stomachs on which they projected what they were thinking.
He also mentioned to his production partners that these strange beings acted in a very childish way, falling into the “stupid.” In the narration, he told that he spent some months in that strange dimension along with three other companions, who like him, learned to communicate with the strange beings through telepathy.
According to Davenport, one day those beings (who inspired the Teletubbies) found a cylindrical stone with an intense light that when they touched it, returned them to the sphere in which they had been initially entered; he argued that in reality, he was only in that world for a few seconds, however, it felt like months.
The creator of the Teletubbies revealed that that experiment marked his life, and therefore he wanted to reflect it in his “children’s” program. The alleged story, perhaps could have been a Davenport dream or even a story produced by his imagination due to the effects of alcohol. Reality or simple imagination, Teletubbies is one of the most nostalgic programs, although if we watch them now, they still make us curious.
Story originally published in Spanish in Cultura Colectiva
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