Strange and/or stupid theories about children's shows

[MySqueeHasBeenSeverelyHarshed]

I recently started up a podcast with a friend of mine discussing bizarre theories about various media, we'd been doing it for a while as a live panel at certain community events and figured we'd branch out so we could do it more often. We have a lot of theories already but what I'd really like to do is at least one toddler TV special. I've had to watch a lot of Cbeebies and Nick Junior over the years and came up with the theories out of boredom. These are the ones I'm working with right now:

*In the Night Garden is a vision of hell with Iggle Piggle et al being eternally punished for their sins

*Captain Hook in Jake and the Neverland Pirates is a victim of severe brain injury and his place on the island is actually a health retreat built to help him recover

*Lazytown takes place after a nuclear winter, Robbie Rotten was actually trying to keep everyone safe from deadly fallout

*The mutant cars in Blaze and the Monster Machines enslaved and killed off humanity, they let AJ and Gabby survive because Gabby has useful skills and Blaze needs a support human in order to move

*The Fat Controller is a mobster and the island of Sodor is a complex money-laundering operation

Is there any shows I should add to the list? I've heard theories about Bing but haven't workshopped that much yet, and the kids I was minding are older now so I don't know what the toddlers are watching as much right now (besides Paw Patrol, I need a theory for that but I find it so boring I can't even come up with anything good.)

What awful stuff does your toddler make you watch over and over?

Whenever dd watched balamory I always thought it was a CBeebies hybrid of Royston Vasey and Jeremy Kyle. The childminder didn't even have a clue which dc she was minding till they arrived and the teacher couldn't do her job without asking for help from all her unemployed friends. And no fucker ever changed their clothes.

The night garden was obviously written by someone on hallucinogenic drugs.

Big cook little cook- obviously a front for a big money laundering/ drugs operation. We're supposed to believe it hasn't gone bankrupt with two staff and one customer per day. Both cooks really work for free for their daily hit. Little cook's broomstick flights are just LSD, the kitchen is a crystal meths lab and they're both bombing that with a few E's to dance as they do.

As a child I always thought Norman Price WAS Sam's son... I don't know why I thought this but that makes the theory that it is his son more plausible as obviously my 5 year old brain picked up on the subliminal hints!

Brilliant idea. What’s your podcast called please? It sounds like something I’ll like 😁

I thought he was completely miscast — TC is such a bruiser, physically — but managed to pull it off, nonetheless!

It was his facial expression that did it! That look of "here we fucking go... fuck my life..."

No one has mentioned Me Too! yet. An absolute piece of trash inflicted on me by youngest DS when he went through a phase of waking at 5am and it was the opening show when Cbeebies started at 6am. Tina and Raymond with their marriage of convenience, they're so mismatched. Granny Murray who must have some serious bloody dirt on the head of Ofsted to have gotten through her last childminding inspection, same for Micky John who is the world's most incompetent teacher.

Charlie and Lola's parents are crack heads which is why they're never seen and why Charlie has to look after Lola all of the time.

In Peppa Pig you only ever see Mummy Pig's parents and not Daddy Pig's parents. This is because many years ago there was a huge falling out when he announced he was going to marry Mummy Pig. Mummy Pig's parents said that he wasn't good enough, Daddy Pig's parents said that she was too stuck up. Daddy Pig had to choose and he chose Mummy Pig. He still sees his brother but they deliberately don't talk about mum and dad as it's awkward all round however every Christmas, Daddy Pig sends them a card and every New Year it is returned unopened.

Peppa Pig and Ben and Holly exist in the same universe but Ben and Holly aren't actually 'real', they're bedtime stories told to Peppa and George by Grandpa Pig.

@TheTempest it's called Crackpot Theories, it's on Spotify, iTunes and TuneIn but you can find it directly here:

www.buzzsprout.com/723450

My Balamory theory was that it was a community for rehabilitated criminals to pay back society for their crimes but some of them were obviously relapsing (particularly Josie Jump whose general twitchiness indicated designer drug use and Edie McCready who traveled around the world as an illegal goods smuggler).

With my In the Night Garden post I wanted to make a point about the Tombleeboos in particular: their whole schtick is that they fall over a lot but whenever it cuts to their house it appears that they live in a giant bramble patch full of eye-gouging spikes and slippy inclines. How have they survived in there unless it's a Prometheus-type deal where their missing organs regenerate overnight?

Oh and wasn't there a theory about the reboot of Topsy and Tim that the mother was a beard for the father? The kids I minded thought Topsy and Tim was boring so I never saw more than a few minutes.

They did watch the weird plastic CG Noddy though, they loved it even though all the characters looked like they were melting so I assume it takes place during the end stage of the heat death of the universe.

In Peppa Pig it's obvious Granny Pig had an affair with Grandad Dog. It's why Grandad Dog always takes the piss - the Pigs may have got back together but Grandad Dog showed Granny Pig how to be a real sow. She always has a twinkle in her eye when she sees him.

ITNG is a political metaphor - the ten red Pontipines represent the Labour Party and the blue Wottingers the Tories. Everyman Iggle Piggle is a confused floating voter (on his boat, get it?) subjected to strong opinions from gobby Upsy Daisy and wise old Makka Pakka. The Hahoos represent capitalism and other social factors in the background, and the Tombliboos represent the drunken proletariat. The Ninky Nonk is taking them all on a journey through life and the way everything gets relatively larger and smaller is related to how issues vary in importance throughout our lives.

A lot of the programmes mentioned I’ve missed due to my children being too old. I did once watch In the Night Garden with subtitles on, very amusing.

I never watched the last episode of a Balmory, but always imagined that the teacher sailed off on a ferry to marry a vet on the mainland, and everyone waved her off, with PC Plum looking a little forlorn at one point, and then cheering up because he knew she was happy.

Just read the article about Balamory - intriguing!

@LadyCordeliaVorkosigan thanks for giving me something to go on with the Pontipines, I hadn't figured out what their deal was

We recorded our Christmas episodes last night, they went to some very strange places. We'll probably record the toddler tv ones to release just after Christmas. Thanks so much for all this input, it's been an eye-opener.

I'm just bumping this because we released one of our Toddler TV episodes last week and we're releasing the second one tomorrow. We gave mumsnet a shout out and in the second episode I did mention @LadyCordeliaVorkosigan's theory about the Pontipines but I kept it fairly vague because I didn't have expressed permission. You can find those episodes here if you're interested:

www.buzzsprout.com/723450

...or we're available on Spotify, iTunes, iHeart Radio, basically most places that host podcasts.

We had so much fun doing these episodes that we're dying to do some more Toddler TV specials later on. Thanks for all your help, it's much appreciated.