Last night, Mr C introduced me to some of his children’s TV purchases from iTunes. What you watched as a child is a conversation that is always popular, everyone has good and bad memories of things they used to consume via the tellybox, and nostalgia is often a good thing.

This also reminded me of a post by Alex, where he pondered each generation thinking the next is going to the dogs. It’s easy to look at Kids TV these days and think it must be twisting the next generation’s mind. Look at the Teletubbies!

However, after seeing the shows Mr C used to watch as a kid, I’m not sure they are any worse than the ones today. We indulged in an episode of The Flumps, Mr Benn, Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine and Trumpton.

The Flumps are very cute but utterly confusing, and remind me the most of the aforementioned Teletubbies. They look mostly the same with a few variations to distinguish the family unit. They burst into song for no apparent reason, and make up words for things like a Flumpet, and a Flumsicle.

Ivor the Engine was also quite strange. The dragon was cold so he put it in the fire of the train, and then took it to see a woman who started walking all over the tracks. It was quite hard to follow.

I don’t even know where to begin with Mr Benn. My main complaint happened only moments into the first episode.

Here is Mr Benn:

And here he is in the very next scene, quite literally one second later in the programme:

That is a completely different character! Just because he’s wearing a bowler hat, you can’t fool me into thinking that it’s the same man. His face is a different shape.

I did, however, enjoy Trumpton very much - despite the fact they sent the entire Fire Brigade out to look for an artist who then happened to be sitting right outside in the town square.

This post is not designed to belittle any of the programmes mentioned. As stated above, all kids TV has the element of nostalgia for those that watched it, but sometimes, looking back can prove that the TV of today is not all that much worse.