The Clangers were dropping secret expletives without the knowledge of their TV audience, according to a new book by the son of the children’s series creator.
Daniel Postgate’s book, entitled “Clangers: The Complete Scripts 1969-1974”, reveals for the first time the full scripts of the original show which charmed and delighted young audiences during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
And it turns out the space-dwelling creatures were prone to profanity.
Created by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin, who were also behind children’s favourites Bagpuss and Ivor the Engine, the show followed the other-worldly antics of some small, knitted pink aliens.
It was revived in 2015 for BBC’s Cbeebies.
Although the Clangers appeared to communicate through the medium of swanee whistle language, the scripts were actually written in English and the diminutive denizens of the moon-like celestial sphere were not adverse to the odd bit of cursing.
“People have often wondered whether there was swearing,” Daniel Postgate told The Observer, “Some people don’t realise that the scripts were written in English. And those who do often speculate on whether a certain amount of bad language – swearing, to be blunt – had been slipped into their conversations.
“It was a very much a 70s family, so they were a bit abrasive with each other.
“Nothing really bad, but you can’t get away with that so much now.”
He told The Telegraph: “There’s a bit of swearing in there, I think… I don’t want to specify words, but they’re alluded to, certainly. I think in those days the BBC didn’t read the scripts.
“The Soup Dragon… was quite bad-tempered as well, I think. The only character that didn’t have any translation was the Iron Chicken, I think she was more emotive, she was either flustered or broody.”
Publication of 27 scripts along with the musical notation for each episode and the knitting patterns for the creatures, by crowdfunded publishing house Unbound, will reveal exactly what was causing the Clangers to cuss.
But Oliver Postgate, who died in 2008, had already admitted in an interview that an early episode had featured a jammed door incident in which swearing had occurred.
He told how Major Clanger was caught whistling the words: “Sod it, the bloody thing has stuck again.”
Although at the time, he said a well-mannered child was more likely to have interpreted the phrase as “Oh dear, the silly thing’s not working properly”.
Script publication makes it clear the correct translation was the former rather than the latter.
Daniel Postgate said his book reveals some of the inspiration for the series, which started in the year of the first moon landing.
“The series came out shortly after the release of David Bowie’s Space Oddity album”, he said, “It was a creative touchstone.”
A hardback version of Clangers: The Complete Scripts 1969-1974 is now on sale for £30.