Again! Again! (ED! #10)

Where would the world be without the Teletubbies?
It seems that just about everyone has been talking about this lot recently, and I have to admit that I missed out on the early stages of this craze by just never being around at the time of day it was on.
But the other day I rose from my bed in time to catch the cultural phenomenon that this show undoubtedly is, and resolved to try and work out why it was so popular.
Yes, 10am. It was time for Teletubbies. Teletubbies seems to be set on a golf course - I guess that explains why it appeals to people. After all, golf is a popular sport.

Although it'd probably be less popular if the process of birdieing and being teed off, or whatever it is that golfers actualy do, was interrupted by bits of broken old telephones erupting out of the 18th hole while four brightly coloured space aliens began running around the field of play.

I had a rough idea of the characters and what they were called.. I knew there was.. erm.. Po, and Dipsy, and Wee wee, or something like that, but wasn't quite sure.

I'm sure one of the characters introduced themselves as "Hanky Wanky" but I put that down to me not being fully awake.

Who knows, in 20 years time people might be claiming there was a Teletubby by that name in the same way that people think there were rude characters in Captain Pugwash.

Which, I would add, there weren't.

Still, I watched Teletubbies some more and still couldn't really figure out exactly what the deal was. Then the tubbies did their "who's going to show the movie on their tummies today" bit. Waiting to find out whether it would be Po, Dipsy, LaLa, or Tinky Winky certainly took me back to the dates of Play school and its excitingly shaped windows.

We never had windows like that in my house.

But then again in my day we didn't have the Teletubbies. Maybe that's part of the problem in society.

Kids these days have four, very expensive tubbie things running around a golf course - and golf courses aren't exactly cheap - and some kind of hostile alien command centre where tubby custard is produced.

In my day, we had Humpty. And Humpty didn't say a lot either. He could barely wave bye-bye without the help of the presenter.

Don't get me wrong here, Humpty was absolutely the man in my day, but these days I guess time goes on.

Anyway, the tubbies played this video and it was all about the number five. Exciting stuff it was too. They had five red buses, and .. well, just about five of everything.

Then a milkman appeared. "Five pints please," it said. "Aha", I thought to myself. "Now I understand why this is so popular with grown-ups, it must be some kind of drinking game."

But as quickly as it had started, the exciting video about the number five had finished.

And then.. the tubbies played it again! "Again, again!" they cried! And they did play it again! The whole thing!

I mean, it was like watching an episode of Entertainment Tonight or something.

Damn it, I wish I'd thought of that joke on mailbox. It could have been really funny at the time.