Lovely interview in the Guardian, or at least extract of the autobiography of Oliver Postgate, the man behind Smallfilms, creator of such greats as Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine, and my all time favourite from Childhood, the Clangers.
The clangers didn't speak they just whistled, so I was amused to read that when he wrote the scripts he had the Major saying things he might be better off not saying in a children's programme.
"He asked Ursula Eason of the BBC what they objected to in the scripts. She replied: ‘The bad language.’ I could only think of one piece of bad language.
One of the episodes begins with Major Clanger trying to open the big sliding doors of the main cave-mouth. It jams and his first line is: ‘Oh sod it! The bloody thing’s stuck again!’ ‘That’s it,’ Ursula said. ‘You know quite well we can’t say things like that on children’s programmes.’
But I said, ‘they don’t say it. They whistle it.’
‘But surely people will know?’ ‘If they have nice minds they will hear him say: “Oh dear me. The naughty thing is jammed again.”’
‘Oh, all right, then, but please keep the language moderate.’
Wonderful stuff.
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