Bagpuss was possibly the most popular UK children's television series of the 1970s, made by Smallfilms. It is fondly and widely remembered, despite the fact that only 13 episodes was ever made.
The program would open with a narrated series of sepia tinted still photos, showing Emily (played by animator Peter Firmin's daughter Emily), a little girl who would find lost and broken things. She would take them home to Bagpuss's shop, and before she went away, she sang a little rhyme to Bagpuss (the most important, beautiful, magical, saggy old cloth cat in the whole wide world):
- Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss
- Old Fat Furry Catpuss
- Wake up and look at this thing that I bring
- Wake up, be bright, be golden and light
- Bagpuss, oh hear what I sing
The toys would discuss what the new object was; someone (usually Madeleine) would tell a story related to the object (shown in an animated thought bubble over Bagpuss's head), usually with a song, which would be accompanied by Gabriel on the banjo (which often sounded a lot more like a guitar), and then the mice, singing in high pitched squeaky harmony as they worked, would mend the broken object. The new thing would be put in the Shop window, so that whoever had lost it would see it as they went past, and could come in and claim it.
Then Bagpuss would start yawning again, and as he fell asleep the narration returned and all the toys reverted: Professor Yaffle once again became a bookend, the mice turned back to carvings on the Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ, and Bagpuss became, once again, just a saggy old cloth cat: baggy, and a bit loose at the seams.
But Emily loved him.
Most of the stories and songs used in the series are based on folk songs and fairy tales from around the world.
Episodes
The titles of the thirteen episodes each refer in some way to the object Emily found.External link