Just to add my aunt thinks in the night garden is racist and she is a nursery lunchtime person and helper, mind her children are grown up.
Her argument was that maka paki wasn't the right think to tell children. I got annoyed and said the characters name was maka paka and it was a lovely program she still insisted as it could be construed that way and used as a racist taunt. I gave up.
Just had a similar discussion about rastamouse at my grandmas when my dc's were watching it the other day.
Her argument stripped down. 'This is silly what is irie (sorry spelling) what is that teaching children' my dd 4yo 'he's happy', my aunt 'how do you know that' dd 'because thats what he said' my aunt 'speaking like that is racist as you are not from there' my dd 'i am not talking like that i am just watching it and it's easy to know what it means if you watch it' my aunt 'well it is still racist to use words that aren't yours, it makes people feel different'
I was very confused by my aunt as surely this program is about making things unfamiliar familiar. Making people understand each other and to show that although we are different our morals and goals are the same.
I later, out of aunts earshot told dd to ignore my aunt. I was also amazed dd had gotten the grasp of the program, i actually didn't realise irie meant no worries (thanks urban dictionary) until i looked it up to confirm dds beliefs and my dd had grasped that just from watching it. Also we are rural northern so she must have got the gist of the language from the storyline. I think its great.