FROM the Rubik’s Cube, to Transformers and Buzz Lightyear, the UK has always seemed to be ready for a toy ‘craze’.
Usually, the media will tack ‘-mania’ on the end of a brand name or phenomenon, as if to add to the air of sensationalism that surrounds such purchasing panics.
In 1997, the year Tony Blair led his New Labour to an electoral landslide and the UK mourned as one after the death of Princess Diana, a small BBC children’s programme was crowned that year’s ‘craze’.
On the morning of March 31 that year, TV-watching toddlers across the nation welcomed a new dawn – on the land of the Teletubbies.
They – and their parents – received their first introduction to Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po, a brightly-coloured quartet who spoke in barely-discernible, mostly two-syllable squeaks as they bounced their way around a fictional landscape of green grass and bright sunshine doing, well, not a lot really.
Now, watching Teletubbies was a surreal experience. Not only were the characters’ conversations seemingly gibberish, the plots of each episode were also somewhat confusing and difficult to grasp. No one seemed able to discern what it was all about.
But it didn’t matter. Young viewers loved them. And when I say they loved the Teletubbies, they LOVED them.
Teletubbies was a huge hit around the world. Picture: BBC
Their popularity soon prompted articles in the national press – yes, Teletubbiesmania became a thing.
In November 1997, BBC News featured a segment on that year’s Christmas toy craze was the Teletubbies – including interviews with customers at Hamley’s in London as hundreds queued in the hope of securing the must-have dolls.
“In some shops, scuffles have broken as frustrated parents try to get their hands on Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po. Other retailers have begun rationing them, allowing just one Teletubby per person,” the reporter informed us.
However, as with all pre-Christmas toy crazes, the demand tends to come down with the decorations, and Teletubbies settled back into its place in the running order of early-morning viewing for most little ones in the UK.
But one comment from the BBC report proved insightful – although not in the way it may have been intended.
A Hamley’s spokesperson spoke of how Teletubbies was “uniquely English”, but added how Teletubbiesmania “happened here first, and will probably happen in the US next year”.
The US version of Teletubbies hit screens across the pond in April 1998 on the PBS Ready to Learn Service, reaching millions of homes.
The accompanying merchandise – made by toy giant Hasbro – also hit shelves, including figures, bath toys and more.
Teletubbies didn’t cause quite the stir in the US it did here, but it did very well and secured a long-term place on TV schedules, as well as millions in profits for the BBC and show creators, Anne Wood and Andrew Davenport.
And in February 1999, it hit the big time, big time. For during that month, the conservative Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell took an interest in the cuddly creations.
Now, Rev Falwell was not just any pastor. He was the pastor in the United States, preaching to evangelicals in the US for decades.
He was among the first evangelicals to make worship a multimillion-dollar TV event through broadcasts watched by millions across the country.
Jerry Falwell at an I Love America rally in 1980. Picture: Mark T Foley/Florida Memory Project
His voice and his views mattered to Americans. And one way he shared that voice was in the National Liberty Journal, his own monthly publication read and followed by millions of Christians.
The February 1999 edition featured a ‘parents alert’, highlighting one Tinky Winky, alongside more understandably controversial subjects such as the adult cartoon South Park and reports of a nude woman appearing in Disney’s The Rescuers (note to self: must rewatch).
But what could Jerry Falwell possibly have against our colourful, cuddly, purple friend, I hear you ask?
Well, Rev Falwell – or his editor at the NLJ – had decided Tinky Winky was gay, which Falwell famously loathed.
Again, when I say ‘loathed’, I mean he loathed homosexuality.
Falwell once proclaimed how “gay folks would just as soon kill you as look at you”, and that the AIDS epidemic was “not just God’s punishment for homosexuals” but was “punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals”.
He was a massive homophobe, so the suggestion Tinky Winky was gay was, crazily, a cause for concern to him.
The parent alert published in the NLJ said: “The character, whose voice is obviously that of a boy, has been found carrying a red purse in many episodes and has become a favourite character among gay groups worldwide.”
Hold up there parents, Tinky Winky has a red purse.
It went on to describe how Tinky Winky was purple – “the gay pride colour” – and that the character’s antenna was “shaped like a triangle – the gay pride symbol”.
“These subtle depictions are no doubt intentional, and parents are warned to be alert to these elements of the series,” the alert said.
It added how “role-modelling the gay lifestyle is damaging to the moral lives of children”.
Clearly Falwell and his ilk believe gay people spend their mornings running around on plastic sets gibbering at each other and saying ‘love you’ a lot.
Interestingly, the other characters were not mentioned, so clearly their sexual preferences were fine with Falwell and his followers, but who knows.
Anyway, the sexuality of the Teletubbies had, remarkably, been the subject of some conjecture in various light-hearted articles for some time.
But Falwell’s intervention took it to another level.
He said while the NLJ had not been the first to ‘out’ Tinky Winky, he welcomed the media storm the alert had whipped up, which gave him the opportunity to appear on numerous mainstream news shows to discuss the claims and be generally homophobic, no doubt.
“I’ll gladly allow my name to be soiled by the secular press in order to have the occasion to share my relationship with Christ – any time,” he wrote gleefully.
Participants at the 1999 New Orleans Mardi Grass mock Falwell over his Teletubbies comments. Picture: Infrogmation of New Orleans
In response, I think Laurie Fry, director of broadcast promotion at PBS, spoke for all of us when she issued a statement (that when read, seems to perfectly create a picture of her eyes rolling in disbelief) saying the furore was “mindboggling”.
“He’s supposed to be a toddler, this is a children’s show for goodness sake,” she said.
On the dreaded red purse, she said it was “Tinky Winky’s magic bag, he pulls all kinds of things out of it”.
Quite.
The BBC itself also issued an official response and again, was able to communicate most people’s astonishment at the controversy, saying: “Tinky Winky is simply a sweet, technological baby with a magic bag.”
Who can’t relate to that, eh?
Ditto Kenn Viselman, of Itsy-Bitsy Entertainment (which held the licensing rights to Teletubbies in the US), who summed it up nicely.
“He’s not gay. He’s not straight. He’s just a character in a children’s series,” he said.
Preach, Kenn, preach.
Later that month, he died at the age of 73 after suffering a heart attack.
A religous person may read something in to that, but not me.
The Teletubbies, meanwhile, were still being watched by millions around the world, despite the original series ending in 2001.
A later reboot ran for a further 120 episodes, with the final episode airing in 2018 – giving the Teletubbies almost exactly 20 years more after Falwell’s infamous ‘outing’ of Tinky Winky…
PAUL JONES
Editor in Chief
NOTES
As usual, references are where possible, linked in the piece above. But here are a few for ease of navigation which might help you read more about the incident above:
The BBC report from 1997 on the Teletubbies becoming the Christmas toy craze that year is HERE
If you liked this, you can read a few more of my looks back at some unusual, or lesser-covered, historical bits here:
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