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Teletubbies is a BBC children's television series for toddlers, created by Anne Wood and Andrew Davenport. Ragdoll Productions, produced 365 episodes which has crossed the age divide and become a firm favourite, particularly amongst students -- a woman named Dolly O'Neal had a short-run cable-access TV show about the Teletubbies called Dolly O'Neal with TubbyTalk in Cambridge, Massachusetts, making her and her Tubby backpacks local celebrities. The program features four colourful tubby creatures: Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po, who live in a surreal but natural environment, where the most dangerous predators in sight seem to be the herds of rabbits which pop out of their warrens placed in crucial photographic spots on the set. The four teletubbies have metallic silver-azure rectangular "screens" adorning their tummies. These are used to segue into short film sequences, which are generally repeated at least once. When the series is shown in different countries around the world the film inserts can be tailored to suit local audiences. Though Teletubbies are, in costume, 10'4",7'6",7",and 6'4" feet tall, the fact is disguised by the use of a very large breed of rabbit used as living things for comparison. The Teletubbies have the bodily proportions, behaviour and language of toddlers. The pacing and design of the show was developed by a cognitive psychologist, Andrew Davenport, who structured the show to fit the attention spans of the target audience. The repeating of practically every word is familiar to everyone who has ever worked with young children. The Teletubbies speak in a gurgling baby language which is the subject of some controversy amongst educationalists, some of whom argue that this supposedly made-up talk is not good for children. (A similar complaint was made forty years previously about another children's series, The Flowerpot Men.) Tubbies are at the stage of understanding speech but not yet fully capable of articulating it, exactly like their target audience. The Teletubbies' catch-phrases are Eh-oh(hello)- as in: Eh-oh, Laa-Laa to which Laa-Laa will respond Eh-oh, (other Tubby's name.), "Uh-oh" -- a common toddler response to anything untowards, "Run away! Run away!" -- especially from Dipsy, and "Bye-bye." -- at least four times in a row. Laa-Laa, when flustered, will explode with "Blubberly cheese!", which is as angry as they get, some parents think that the creators made Laa-Laa excited in a sexual manner when she says it, according to some Teletubbies fan sites. The surreal landscape is like the world of a toddler, where they are ordered about, told to go to sleep, and wonderful and mysterious things happen without explanation. A prominent feature of each episode is a radiant sun that has an image of a smiling baby superimposed upon it. The baby in the sun occasionally laughs out loud in short bursts. To adults the laughter does not seem to be in response to any stimulus or humorous developments in the plotline of the episode. There are some who believe the baby in the sun to be the most frightening "Big Brother" entity in the whole of children's television while others think it's the best part of the show. Their diet seems to be almost exclusively Tubby Tustard (which is sucked through a spiral straw bowl) and Tubby Toast (circular toast with a smiley face on it which some have taken to be representative of LSD), and they are spectacularly messy eaters. In one episode, the Tubby Toaster, the machine that makes Tubby Toast went seriously wrong and filled the Teletubbies' house with toast. Fortunately one of their companions is the Noo-Noo, a sentient vacuum cleaner.
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Dolly O'Neal (aka, The Teletubby Lady and Mommy Tubby) has expressed hope that "all these adult issues that interfere with this excellent child's show will run away so the innocence and educational qualities of the show will guide it to become a classic in the likes of Winnie The Pooh. Snuggly, cuddly, and Big Hug!" She also hopes that PBS will air more of the episodes- and there are hundreds- that haven't been shown in the USA. Maybe the USA needs Mommy Tubby to tell the adults to stop sexualizing everything, especially children.
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