Bagpuss (series)

**Bagpuss** is a British series by Smallfilms. It premiered on the BBC on 12 February 1974 with the first episode, "Ship in a Bottle". The main character is Bagpuss, an old plush cat. Other characters include the mice ornaments from the mouse organ, Madeline the rag doll, Gabriel the toad, and Professor Yaffle, a wooden bookend shaped as a woodpecker. They all live in an old-fashioned shop owned by a girl called Emily. The shop is full of lost or broken items so the original owners can come and find them again. Whenever Emily finds something new, she brings it into the shop and recites a verse that brings the characters to life to explore and repair the object:

"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."

Although only 13 episodes of the show were made, it remains fondly remembered, and has often been repeated in the UK. All of the puppets used are also preserved and often travel around various museums.

## Format

The scene is set at the turn of the 20th century, with Emily Firmin (Peter Firmin's daughter) playing the part of the Victorian child Emily. The first antique village vignette is a cropped image of Horrabridge taken in 1898, though nothing is known of the other photo of the children with the pram. The shop window was at the Firmin family home in Blean.

Each programme begins in the same way: through a series of photographs in sepia tone (sometimes black & white), the viewer is told of a little girl named Emily (played by Emily Firmin, the daughter of illustrator Peter Firmin), who owned a shop. Emily finds lost and broken things and displays them in the window, so their owners could come to collect them; the shop doesn't sell anything.

After Emily had left, Bagpuss woke up. The programme shifts from sepia (sometimes black & white) to colour stop motion film and various toys in the shop come to life.

After being introduced by the narrator, the toys discuss what the new object is; one of them tells a story related to the object (sometimes shown in an animated thought bubble over Bagpuss's head), often with a song, 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 to the tune of *Sumer Is Icumen In* as they work, mending the broken object. There is much banter between the characters, with the pompous Yaffle constantly finding fault with the playful mice: his complaint, 'Those mice are never serious!' becomes his main catchphrase. However, peace is always restored by the end of the episode, usually thanks to the timely intervention of Bagpuss, Gabriel or Madeleine. The newly mended object is then placed in the shop window, so that whosoever had lost it would see it as they went past and could come in to collect it. Then Bagpuss starts yawning again and as he falls asleep the narrator would speak as the colour fades to sepia (sometimes black & white) and they all freeze in time again, or as the narrator states, 'they go to sleep too'.

"And so their work was done.

Bagpuss gave a big yawn and settled down to sleep

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.

And 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."