The BBC children’s television programme Teletubbies is, evidently, based upon an SF conceit. But how meaningful is it to call it SF? Whilst conceding science-fictional elements to the show, most viewers, I suppose, would not think of it as belonging to the SF genre. And yet there is a point in making the identification.

The Teletubbies live in Teletubbyland, a sort of hi-tech hobbiton of green fields and hills, dotted with coloured flowers and grazing rabbits, under a bright blue sky. The four Teletubbies themselves live in a sunken dome, tended by technological gadgets of various sorts: a robotic vacuum-cleaner called ‘Nu-nu’ who cleans up all messes, food-producing and other machines, and periscopes that rise spontaneously from the turf to talk or sing to the Teletubbies.

The ’tubbies are differentiated from one another in various ways, and each has a favourite toy or prop. They are, in descending order of size: Tinky-Winky (who is purple, his antenna a triangle shape, his favourite ‘prop’ a handbag); Dipsy (lime green, his antenna a straight-up phallic thrust, his favourite prop an enormous black-and-white top hat); La-La (yellow, her antenna curled like a pig’s tail, her prop a ball); and Po, the littlest of them (red, his antenna a circle, his prop a scooter). The show’s conceit is that these curious space-alien-creatures represent toddlers at different stages of development, such that Tinky-Winky has the greatest (although still severely limited) linguistic capabilities, and Po talks in baby-talk. They are also differentiated in terms of character: they all have racially ‘white’ faces and hands, except for Dipsy who is racially ‘black’ (quite apart from his pimp hat, Dipsy adopts rather patronisingly stereotypical hip-hop dance postures). La-La likes to sing. Po likes to ride around on her scooter. All four of these beings have television screens inset into their bellies: which is, of course, the feature that gives the show its name.

Mr. Daniel

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