Clangers


Clangers is a British stop-motion animated children's television series, consisting of short films about a family of mouse-like creatures who live on, and inside, a small moon-like planet. They speak only in a whistled language, and eat green soup and blue string pudding. The programmes were originally broadcast on BBC1 between 1969 and 1972, followed by a special episode which was broadcast in 1974.
The series was made by Smallfilms, the company set up by Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin. Firmin designed the characters, and Joan Firmin, his wife, knitted and "dressed" them. The music, often part of the story, was provided by Vernon Elliott.
A third series, narrated by Monty Python actor Michael Palin, was broadcast in the UK in June 2015 on the BBC's CBeebies TV channel, gaining hugely successful viewing figures, following on from a short special broadcast by the BBC earlier that year. The new programmes are still made using stop-motion animation. Further new series were made in 2017 and 2019.
Clangers won the British Academy Children's Award for Pre-School Animation in 2015.

Background

The Clangers originated in a series of children's books developed from another Smallfilms production, Noggin the Nog. Publishers Kay and Ward created a series of books based on the Noggin the Nog television episodes, which was subsequently expanded into a series called Noggin First Reader, aimed at teaching children to read.
In one of these, called Noggin and the Moonmouse, published in 1967, a new horse-trough was put up in the middle of the town in the North-Lands. A spacecraft hurtled down and splash-landed in it: the top unscrewed, and out came a largish, mouse-like creature in a duffel coat, who wanted fuel for his spaceship. He showed Nooka and the children that what he needed was vinegar and soap-flakes, so they filled up the fueltank of the little spherical ship, which then "took off in a dreadful cloud smelling of vinegar and soap-flakes, covering the town with bubbles".
In 1969, the BBC asked Smallfilms to produce a new series for colour television, but without specifying a storyline. Postgate concluded that as space exploration was topical the new series should take place in space and, inspired by the real Moon Landing, Peter Firmin designed a set which strongly resembled the Moon. Postgate adapted the Moonmouse from the 1967 story, by simply removing its tail. Hence the Clangers looked similar to mice. They wore clothes reminiscent of Roman armour, "against the space debris that kept falling onto the planet, lost from other places, such as television sets and bits of an Iron Chicken", and they spoke in whistled language.

Storyline

The Clangers was described by Postgate as a family in space. They were small creatures living in peace and harmony on – and inside – a small, hollow planet, far, far away: nourished by Blue String Pudding, and by Green Soup harvested from the planet's volcanic soup wells by the Soup Dragon.
The word "Clanger" is said to derive from the sound made by opening the metal cover of one of the creatures' crater-like burrows, each of which was covered with an old metal dustbin lid, to protect against meteorite impacts. In each episode there would be some problem to solve, typically concerning something invented or discovered, or some new visitor to meet. Music Trees, with note-shaped fruit, grew on the planet's surface, and music would often be an integral feature in the simple but amusing plots. In the Fishing episode, one of the Cheese Trees provided a cylindrical five-line staff for notes taken from the Music Trees.
Postgate provided the narration, for the most part in a soft, melodic voice, describing and accounting for the curious antics of the little blue planet's knitted pink inhabitants, and providing a "translation", as it were, for much of their whistled dialogue. Postgate claimed that in reality when the Clangers' were whistling, they were "swearing their little heads off".

Production

The first of the 26 episodes was broadcast on BBC1 from 16 November 1969. The last edition of the second series was transmitted on 10 November 1972.
However, there was also one final programme, a seven-minute election special entitled Vote for Froglet, broadcast on 10 October 1974. Oliver Postgate said in a 2005 interview that he wasn't sure whether the 1974 special still existed, and it has been referred to as a "missing episode". In fact the whole episode is available from the British Film Institute.
The original Mother Clanger puppet was stolen in 1972. Today, Major Clanger and the second Mother Clanger are on display at the Rupert Bear Museum.
The Clangers grew in size between the first and last episodes, to allow Firmin to use an Action Man model figure in the episode "The Rock Collector".
BBC's CBeebies channel and the American pre-school channel, Sprout, produced a new series for broadcasting in their 2015 schedules, with Michael Palin narrating in place of the late Oliver Postgate. Sprout were major funders and co-producers having commissioned the series in tandem with the BBC, with William Shatner narrating the Sprout version.

Characters

The principal characters are the Clangers themselves, the females wearing tabards and the males brass armour:
  • Small Clanger: the son of Mother and Major Clanger, and the older brother of Tiny Clanger, Small Clanger is very inquisitive and inventive, which - despite his best intentions - has sometimes led to some element of chaos amongst the Clangers, the soup pump being a classic example. Small Clanger is often the focus of the episodes, as he is the most adventurous of the family. He wears brass armour in the original show, but wears a blue tabard in the new version.
  • Tiny Clanger: youngest of the family, daughter to Mother and Major Clanger, and younger sister to Small Clanger, Tiny Clanger often plays a key role in the episodes too. She has a kind and gentle nature, that is apparent in many episodes in which a new visitor arrives, as she usually tries to communicate peacefully with them. She wears a red tabard in the original show. This changed to a bright pink one in the first series of the new version before turning to a reddish pink in later series.
  • Major Clanger: the father and head of the family, he is determined to get all things right on their planet, and can be grumpy. He wears brass armour. Narrator of the 2015 series, Michael Palin, said that Major Clanger is one of his favourite characters.
  • Mother Clanger: mother to Tiny Clanger and Small Clanger, Mother Clanger is the matriarch of the family and is often seen preparing and dispensing the Clangers' soup or Blue String Pudding, though her favourite thing to do is gardening. She wears a red tabard.
  • Granny Clanger: an elderly Clanger, she is fond of knitting and often falls asleep. She wears a black tabard in the original show, but a lilac one in the new version. She is also Major Clanger's mother.
  • Three other Clangers, two males with different coloured hair and a female wearing blue, also appear in the original episodes, but they have been dropped for the 2015 revival.

    Other inhabitants

  • Soup Dragon: a benign, female creature with a penchant for Green Soup. The Soup Dragon dwells in the soup wells within the Clangers' planet. She is often summoned by tapping on the top of what look like small inactive volcanoes; she slides the lid back, and then takes a jug from Small Clanger, which she fills for them to eat. A green glow is visible beneath her when she emerges, suggesting the presence of a substantial lake of green soup.
  • Baby Soup Dragon: the Soup Dragon's son, Baby Soup Dragon was brought into the Clangers' world when the Soup Dragon became broody, which meant the Clangers could not get any soup. Tiny Clanger called the Iron Chicken by radio, for advice, and she told Tiny to get the egg which she had left on the surface of the planet and to fill it with ingredients. Then they made a nest with macaroni sticks, not far from the soup wells, and placed the egg in the middle. The Iron Chicken asked the Clangers to stand back while she shot the iron egg with a beam from her nest: this had an effect, and the Soup Dragon saw the egg and instinctively sat upon it, moments after the beam was shut off. Then the Soup Dragon was startled and leapt up to find that the egg was hatched and she had a Baby Soup Dragon.
  • Froglets: a trio of small orange aliens with black, stalk-like legs and large eyes, who travel around in a top hat. In the 2015 series, they can change colour to yellow and blue. In "The Medal", a series 3 episode of the revived series, 6 froglets can be seen together, and in series 2, one episode has 4, including the green one.
  • The Cloud: a cotton-wool cloud that floats over the surface of the planet, releasing musical raindrops. In the 2015 series, it displays the ability to change its shape.
  • Music Trees: the two small Music Trees are a permanent fixture on the surface of the Clangers' planet. They sit in a small divot on the surface and are often harvested by the Clangers for their musical notes, although the Clangers always politely ask the trees first, after which the trees release some of their notes onto the ground, suggesting some form of sentience.
  • Glow Buzzers: lightbulb-like creatures which live around the Clangers' caves, in hives that they fill with "Glow Honey". They helped Small Clanger find his way out of the flower caves when he followed them one time to find out where they got the Glow Honey from. The Glow Buzzers are rendered digitally in the new series.
  • Iron Chicken: a "bird" made of scrap metal, which lives in an orbiting nest made of metallic junk. The pieces were found around the Smallfilms studio.
  • Iron Chick: the Iron Chicken's chick, who appeared in two episodes of series 2, but never appeared in the 2015 series.
  • Sky Moos: large, flying, blue cow-like creatures that appear in several episodes. They are always hungry, which can come in handy.
  • Singing Flowers: a pair of singing flowers introduced in the 2015 series who are friends of Tiny Clanger.