First things first...
The plural of Potty is not Potties (as used on Wikipedia) but Pottys. It says this on the camera scripts and end credits and we like to get these details right if possible.
Network's recent sale of many Thames Television titles saw us finally cave in and snap up 'Michael Bentine's Potty Time'. It had always been on our Possible Purchases list, but the deal they were offering was too good to pass up.
The Complete First Series set also includes some of 'The Bumblies', Michael's 1954 show in which he adopts a real Mad Scientist look and interacts with the sinister-looking Bumblies who sleep on the ceiling, which only increases my anxiety about them.
The first episode, 'Treasure Island', hit the airwaves on 12th November 1973 and the 'TV Times' piece claimed that there were 200 Pottys, but I'm not intending to sit down and make a tally as we watch the episodes.
The scheduling leads to an episode being shown on Christmas Eve, so what better subject to educate the kids than the way the modern world has impacted upon 'Father Christmas'.
Clarence and his clapperboard opens the procedings as usual, then a pair of Pottys turn up, both claiming to be Father Christmas. Apparently there are so many kids these days, that multiple Santas are needed to cope with the workload.
Every Father Christmas is a member of the FCI, which stands for Father Christmas Intelligence Bureau. Although none of them seems intelligent enough to notice that the acronym for that should be FCIB...
We travel to the secret headquarters at the North Pole, taking a moment to admire the Northern Lights, a nice little nod to Michael Bentine's passion for science. His contributions to 'The Sky At Night' certainly make interesting viewing!
Everything is very modern, with messages coming in from all over the world, requiring the use of a computer, which is operated by gnomes Happy and Merry Christmas.
Happy referes to Michael as 'Giant', which is how the Pottys regard him generally. Though it is not clear why the Pottys come in two different sizes, unless they are distinct sub-species?
At the switchboard, Merry receives some orders for presents, allowing Michael (who does all the voices) to present us with a bewildering array of accents, some of which are even recognisable.
Which is still a better hit-rate than mine, I suppose...
The computer, which has some dangerous-looking exposed wiring on the front, dispenses some presents to Michael's delight.
The episode finds time to deal with the issue of kids possibly seeing their parents delivering the presents at night, but the bigger Father Christmas assures us that this means they are very special undercover deputies, working on behalf of the real Santas.
The sleigh arrives, pulled by Rudolph the Reindog who is now getting on for 2000 years old. Oddly, he does seem to be quite closely related to certain of the toy dogs who feature in 'Are You Being Served? : A Change Is As Good As A Rest'.
Rudolph's sleigh is only used on special occasions and deliveries are now achieved via a fleet of Supersonic Sleighs. We briefly see Number 14 coming in to land, in a sort of cut-price 'Thunderbirds' scene.
Michael says that this has opened his eyes, having never suspected that this is the way things are now done, but the Father Christmases claim it never seems to suprise the kids.
There's an outbreak of singing with a version of 'Jingle Bells' and in saying our goodbyes, Michael gets slightly confused as to which puppet is Happy and which one is Merry, but never mind.
He also briefly becomes possessed by the spirit of Leonard Sachs from 'The Good Old Days' as he invites everyone to sing along at come with a cry of "but chiefly your good selves!". When saying his final goodbyes, he even has to shout to make himself heard over the various Potty voices, but he's only got himself to blame for that.
And all too soon, it's time to roll the end credits (not that they actually roll) and play a blast of the jaunty theme tune!
Production is cheap and cheerful, of course, with Producer / Director Leon Thau later to work on such fare as 'The Tomorrow People' and 'Whodunnit?'
The Pottys are operated by the Barry Smith Theatre Of Puppets, who also had a hand in fuelling my nightmares about the dreaded Humphrey Cushion from 'Hickory House', but let's not hold that against them.
They've a lot on their plate to do technically, and there's only one moment where the larger Father Christmas gets over-excited, spinning around and lifting up to give us a saucy glimpse of the pole stuck up his arse.
I never saw much of this show as a kid, but dipping into it today I really rather enjoyed myself, so in the end we made the right decision.
There's certainly enough to talk about here to do a full 'Round The Archives' article at some point. But let's watch a few more in the meantime...
(By Andrew Trowbridge)
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