The Flowerpot Men
Wednesday's Watch with Mother featured the twin
pot-dwellers Bill and Ben.
Andy Pandy might have had Teddy and Looby Loo (who was
never alive whenever any body was around anyway) but The
Flowerpot Men had Little Weed who stood between them and kept
watch for the evil "man who worked in the garden".
It was never satisfactorily explained why Bill and Ben lived in
fear of the gardener, or why they clambered back into their pots
so frantically to hide on his (alleged) approach . . .
The two puppet men had legs made out of upside-down flowerpots
and over-sized gloves and hobnail boots. Their torso was a
flowerpot too. They spoke gibberish - The "flobbadob"
language, which was invented by Peter Hawkins (who also supplied
the voices for Bill and Ben and had worked on Captain Pugwash
and later provided the 'voices' for The Daleks on Dr Who).
The producers of The Flowerpot Men were criticised by
some parents for promoting immaturity (primarily due to the
constant "flobbadobb-ing!). I personally found them scary
little buggers when I was a wee nipper for the very same reason!
And now in glorious nostalgia-vision, an excerpt from an
all-time classic piece of kiddies television:
"Once upon a time there was a little house. All around
the house was a beautiful garden. And down at the bottom of the
garden was a place where the man who worked in the garden left
his things when he went into the house to have his dinner.
One day, when he'd gone into the house to have his dinner, he
left behind an old glue pot, some seed boxes and some packets of
seeds. There were other things lying about and flowerpots; Two
little ones, two middle-sized ones and two great big ones. And
just behind the big flowerpots was a little weed:
"wee-eed wee-eeed"
and there they all were lying quietly in the sunshine. The
little weed looked all about her, and when she saw that
everything was quiet she knocked gently on the two big
flowerpots and said:
"wee-eed wee-eeed"
and slowly, out of the flowerpots came the flowerpot men...
First out came their little faces, smiling all over, then
their little hands with big garden gloves on; they both turned
round and saw each other:
*ooh flobbalobbalob flobbalob*
Then they said hello to the little weed in their flowerpot
way of talking.
*flobbablob ullo little weed etc*
and the little weed laughed and said:
"wee-eed weee-eeed"
and the flowerpot men thought she meant that someone was
coming so they popped down into their flowerpots again and all
was quiet and drowsy in the sunshine and the little weed stayed
in between the flowerpots and said nothing.
After a time, one of the flowerpot men thought "surely
there's nobody about" and he popped his head up for a
minute to have a look around. Then the other flowerpot man
thought "surely there's no one about" and he popped
his head up to have a look around. And they went on like this
for quite a long time...
The Flowerpot Men made a TV comeback after a break of
almost 30 years. The pair were given a makeover in a bid to
compete with modern children's favourites like The Teletubbies
and The Tweenies.
The newly commissioned 26 part series, which also included Bill
and Ben's floral mentor Little Weed, was shown in 2001 in the UK
on the BBC. Although the two characters kept their "flobbalobbalob"
language, a narrator now translated their gibberish so viewers
could understand them.
Bill and Ben were given larger faces and now wore lime green
bow ties with green gloves. There were no strings attached to the
pair, as the characters were created using computer animation.
Little Weed also changed her image - sporting sunglasses and
taking on a role as "earth mother".
Known in the past only for her trademark "weeeeeeeed"
catchphrase, she now had a more expanded vocabulary. A host of new
characters joined the series, including a hedgehog and a
worm.
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