Bagpuss ( TV Series 1974 )

Plot

​Each programme would begin the same way: through a series of sepia photographs, the viewer is told of a little girl named Emily (played by Emily Firmin, the daughter of illustrator Peter Firmin),[3] who owned a shop. However, it did not sell anything: instead, Emily would find lost and broken things and display them in the window of the shop, so their owners could one day come and collect them. She would leave the object in front of her favourite stuffed toy  the large, saggy, pink and white striped cat named Bagpuss. She would then recite a verse.....

Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss
Old Fat Furry Catpuss
Wake up and look at this thing that I bring
Wake up, be bright, be golden and light
Bagpuss, oh hear what I sing

When Emily had left, Bagpuss would wake up. The programme shifted from sepia to colour stop motion film, and various toys in the shop would also come to life: Gabriel the toad (who, unlike most Smallfilms characters, could move by a special device beneath his can without the use of stop motion animation) and a rag doll called Madeleine. The wooden woodpecker bookend became the drily academic Professor Yaffle (based on the philosopher Bertrand Russell, whom Postgate had once met[4]), while the mice carved on the side of the "mouse organ" (a small mechanical pipe organ which played rolls of music) woke up and scurried around, singing in high-pitched voices. Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner provided the voices of Madeleine and Gabriel respectively, and put together and performed all the proper songs. All the other voices (including the narrator and one out-of-tune mouse) were provided by Oliver Postgate, who also wrote the stories.

The toys would discuss what the new object was; someone (usually Madeleine) would tell a story related to the object (shown in an animated thought-bubble over Bagpuss's head), often with a song, which would be accompanied by Gabriel on the banjo (which often sounded a lot more like a guitar), and then the mice, singing in high pitched squeaky harmony as they worked, would mend the broken object. The newly mended thing would then be put in the shop window, so that whoever had lost it would see it as they went past, and could come in and claim it. Then Bagpuss would start yawning again, and as he fell asleep the colour faded to sepia and they all became toys again.

And, of course, when Bagpuss goes to sleep,
All his friends go to sleep too.
The mice were ornaments on the mouse organ.
Gabriel and Madeleine were just dolls.
Professor Yaffle was a carved, wooden bookend in the shape of a woodpecker.
Even Bagpuss himself, once he was asleep, was just an old, saggy cloth cat,
Baggy, and a bit loose at the seams,
But Emily loved him



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Episode Guide

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( 1 )    The Ship in a Bottle   12 February 1974   Some splints of wood are shaken out of a bottle by the mice. Bagpuss tells a story about mermaids and the magic repairs the model ship. The mice put it back into the bottle and raise the sails.

( 2 )      The Owls of Athens 19 February 1974   A dirty rag reveals a picture of an owl once cleaned. Madeleine recounts a story which explains why the owls sound like they do. Gabriel recounts in song the story of a king who needed a cushion to sit on.

( 3 )      The Frog Princess 26 February 1974   Assorted jewels, which initially are thought to represent a cat and mouse but which Gabriel decides were the crown jewels of a frog princess

( 4 )      The Ballet Shoe 5 March 1974   Put to inventive use by the mice, and the subject of a very silly song about its possible use as a rowing boat

( 5 )      The Hamish 12 March 1974   A tartan porcupine pincushion, and a legend of a small, soft creature from Scotland

( 6 )      The Wise Man 19 March 1974   A broken figurine of a Chinese man (the Wise Man of Ling-Po, Yaffle explains) and a turtle

( 7 )      The Elephant 26 March 1974   An elephant missing its ears

( 8 )      The Mouse Mill 2 April 1974   A wooden toy mill demonstrated by the mice to make chocolate biscuits out of butterbeans and breadcrumbs. This turns out to be a mischievous fraud. Gabriel and Madeleine sing a song about a farmer in a mill, which makes even stern old Professor Yaffle cry.

( 9 )      The Giant 9 April 1974   A statuette, and a lesson about how sizes are relative

( 10 )    Old Man's Beard 16 April 1974   A tangly plant (Clematis vitalba seeding)

( 11 )    The Fiddle 23 April 1974   A fiddle that plays itself, and a leprechaun

( 12 )    Flying 30 April 1974   A basket that the mice attempt to turn into a flying machine

( 13 )    Uncle Feedle 7 May 1974   A piece of cloth, destined to be a house for a rag doll

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