Moon and Me ****
ATTENTION, parents, grandparents, and students with an ironic love of children’s television. As of last night there are some new kids in town you need to gen up on fast. Why? Because they spring from the imagination of Andrew Davenport.
The co-creator of global hit Teletubbies and the deviser of the equally successful Into the Night Garden is to children’s television what David “The Sopranos” Chase is to crime drama and Galton and Simpson were to comedy. He is the godfather, but in a loving, doesn’t send anyone to sleep with the fishes kind of way. His latest irresistible offer to preschoolers is Moon and Me, the tale of a magical toy house whose residents come alive after dark.
A preview on iPlayer created a buzz and now a series of five episodes runs every night this week.
A blend of live action and stop-motion animation using low tech, hand-built puppets, Moon and Me begins with a child closing up a toy house for the night. “Close your eyes, don’t you peep, this is the way we go to sleep,” she tells her favourite doll, Pepi Nana.
Once the light is off, Pepi Nana wakes up and starts saying her catchphrase: tiddle-toddle. Get used to it, people, as it is about to become as ubiquitous as chips.
“Tiddle-toddle, tiddle-toddle, tiddle-toddle,” trills Pepi Nana as she wakes up the other residents: Sleepy Dibillo, Mr Onions, Lambikins: Colly Wobbles, and Little Nana.
Her next move is to write a letter to the moon, asking it to come for tea and tell everyone a story. As luck would have it, Moon Baby, complete with a fetching blue Mohican, is in residence and only too delighted to fly down and take everyone to Storyland.
A delightful mix of sights and sounds and songs that the very young will quickly warm to, Moon and Me would make ideal pre-bedtime viewing. It is intentionally repetitive, relying on familiarity to breed contentment, and the narrator, Nina Sosanya (Lucy from W1A), has a voice that is made to tell stories that begin with “Once upon a time”, as they do here.
Moon and Me might deploy modern programme making techniques, and be based on the latest thinking on children’s language development and play - Davenport is a speech therapist by training - but it has traditional elements, too. If once upon a time ain’t broke, why fix it?
With the trail blazed by Teletubbies and In the Night Garden, Moon and Me will not cause the furore Tinky Winky and company once did, with some parents complaining the characters were spouting gibberish. Thinking has moved on from then, and there is an acceptance that children learn language more successfully through play.
So much for the science bit. Story over, it’s time for everyone to return to the toy house and for Moon Baby to blow his last kiss - what a charmer - and go home, too.
If the thought occurs that the characters would make lovely toys for your own child, business is way ahead of you. Some 40 UK-based licensees, plus multinational firms Hasbro and Scholastic, had signed on to make Moon and Me bedroom furniture, electronic learning toys, lighting, skates, bikes … you name it, someone is probably making it. Moon and Me is child’s play all right, but only up to a point.
CBeebies, Monday-Friday, 5.45pm CHARACTERS Pepi Nana: Likes to “tiddle-toddle” through life.
Moon Baby: Has a magical kalimba, the playing of which signals the journey into Storyland.
Sleepy Dibillo: Snores cutely.
Mr Onions: Looks like an onion and says “onions” a lot.
Lambikins: baby sheep on wheels.
Colly Wobbles: plays mouth organ Little Nana: Sleeps in a matchbox
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