Hand-Made Television
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Hand-Made Television DOI: 10.1057/9781137551634.0001 Other Palgrave Pivot titles H. Peter Langille: Developing a United Nations Emergency Peace Service: Meeting Our Responsibilities to Prevent and Protect Christina Papagiannouli: Political Cyberformance: The Etheatre Project Jennifer J. Bagelman: Sanctuary City: A Suspended State Ellen McCracken: Paratexts and Performance in the Novels of Junot Díaz and Sandra Cisneros Chong Hyun Christie Byun: The Economics of the Popular Music Industry Christina Papagiannouli: Political Cyberformance: The Etheatre Project Lorann Downer: Political Branding Strategies: Campaigning and Governing in Australian Politics Daniel Aronoff: A Theory of Accumulation and Secular Stagnation: A Malthusian Approach to Understanding a Contemporary Malaise John Mohan and Beth Breeze: The Logic of Charity: Great Expectations in Hard Times Carrie Dunn: Football and the Women’s World Cup: Organisation, Media and Fandom David R. 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Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-55162-7 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission. In accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 2016 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of Nature America, Inc., One New York Plaza, Suite 4500 New York, NY 10004–1562. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. ISBN: 978–1–349–71589–3 ISBN: 978–1–137–55163–4 PDF Distribution in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world is by Palgrave Macmillan®, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress A catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library DOI: 10.1057/9781137551634 For Ned and Johnny ‘Clangers watching TV’ by Ned (aged five) DOI: 10.1057/9781137551634.0001 Contents List of Figures vii Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 1 Contexts 8 2 The Pastoral Past 33 3 The Hand-Made 68 4 Magic and Movement 89 Bibliography 113 Filmography 122 Teleography 123 Index 125 vi DOI: 10.1057/9781137551634.0001 List of Figures ‘Clangers watching TV’ by Ned (aged five) v 1.1 Peter Firmin’s animation for ‘Woodwinds’, Pogle’s Wood, 1967 28 3.1 Mr Pingwing, washed and hung out to dry in the first episode of The Pingwings(ITV, 1961) 76 3.2 The hand-crafted in Clangers (BBC, 1969) 78 3.3 ‘Your Own Pippin’, The Pogles Annual, 1967 83 3.4 ‘Little Wire People’, The Pogles Annual, 1967 84 4.1 Letter from Oliver Postgate to Ursula Easen, 1965 97 4.2 Mabel at the end of the dolls’ ironing board, The Pingwings(ITV, 1963) 110 DOI: 10.1057/9781137551634.0002 vii Acknowledgements There are numerous people whose professional or personal contribution to this book I want to acknowledge here. I owe thanks to Richard Perkins, subject librarian extraordinaire at the University of Warwick, for confirm- ing that I wasn’t mad when I first identified this topic as a gap in the field. The help of the BBC Written Archives Centre at Caversham, and especially Katie Ankers and Louise North, with the institutional research for the book was invaluable; thanks go to Charlotte Stevens too for her research assistance, company and navigational skills on the last visit when I almost got us lost in a wood which looked like it might have been inhabited by Pogles. I am very grateful to Karen Lury, both for making available the conference paper which was so formative for this project and for her enthusiasm about the book. Thank you, Nic Pillai, for listening to the Clangers score and talking to me about jazz. Thanks also to Loaf of The Dragon’s Friendly Society for being willing to chat and to forward emails, and to Estelle Hughes for talking about Thunderbirds Are Go. Peter Firmin and Dan Postgate were very generous in giving me permission to reproduce artwork (Figures 3.3 and 3.4) and Oliver’s Letter (Figure 4.1), respectively. I am also extremely grateful to Peter for reading and check- ing the final draft and for supplying information about the making of the Smallfilms programmes which was unavailable elsewhere. Many thanks go to the students on Television History and Criticism at Warwick between 2011 and 2015 for humouring and often sharing my enthusiasm viii DOI: 10.1057/9781137551634.0003 Acknowledgements ix for old children’s television, for offering insight and for encouraging me to write this book. The Summer Writing Club was an invaluable source of support, motivation and humour during the final few months – you know who you are! Marie and John – thank you for taking care of Ned during his first school summer holiday so that I could finish. I owe my biggest thanks, professional and personal, to the friends and colleagues who read and commented on drafts of this book at different stages. To Amy Holdsworth: thank you, in particular, for encouraging me to think further about telephilia and memory. To Helen Wheatley: thank you for being supportive, constructive and encouraging at every stage and in every possible way. Finally, to Karl Schoonover: the incredibly generous, meticulous and emboldening comments you made on (two!) drafts of this book were invaluable and I can’t thank you enough. Johnny – thank you for being the best daddy in the world to Ned and for your outstand- ing Photoshop skills. Thank you to my parents (especially Mom), for sharing these programmes with me in the late 1960s and early 1970s and buying my firstPogles Annual. Finally, thank you, Ned, for helping me to remember the magic of stop-frame television. BBC copyright material reproduced courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved. DOI: 10.1057/9781137551634.0003.