Freaky Teletubby hypnosis

23 Dec 2006 💬 1

I used to think that the Teletubbies were just cute, fat, bouncy, innocent little TV celebrities. But I've finally come to realise the truth that was so obvious all along: the Teletubbies are evil.

And very hypnotic

I've heard tales for many years that the Teletubbies have a hypnotic effect on little kids. More recently, I've witnessed this hypnosis first-hand, as it infected my little step-sister. Today, the final blow came. For a few terrifying minutes, I myself fell victim to the magnetism of the Teletubbies.

The thing that I found most compelling to watch was the landscape. It's so neat, so bright and green and pastel-coloured, so blatantly artificial (although I've heard, ironically, that the show is actually filmed on location at a real country farm in England, with a fair bit of special effects added in). It looks like something out of a computer game. Or like an alien planet (insert sinister laugh here).

I guess the British love the show so much because, unlike the real England, it never rains in Teletubbyland! There's (almost) always a clear blue sky, and a happy, smiling, laughing orange sun shining down from overhead.

Speaking of which, what is the deal with that stupid baby-faced sun? Another strangely hypnotic feature of the show, the sun seems to randomly smile, laugh, and make weird baby noises. There are also numerous eerie moments in the show, where the sun and the teletubbies just stop whatever they're doing (which generally isn't much), and stare at each other for a while, apparently locked in a fervent lover's trance.

The narrator

This has to be one of the freakiest things about the Teletubbies. I don't know where they found this guy, but he's bad news. It's not just his incredibly insightful comments, such as "Teletubbies love each other very much" (said as Teletubbies embrace in a [literally] pear-shaped group orgy). It's the way he says them. He's completely unexcited, completely unenthusiastic. He could teach Bernie Fraser how to talk boring.

Not only is he utterly uninspiring with his droning monotone; he also repeats everything over and over again. For example:

This most eloquent of poems must have been recited at least 5 times, in the space of just one episode. I'm not sure if the intent is to hypnotise or to tranquilise; the end result is a bit of both.

Flubs

Then there's all the other things: the visual appearance of the Teletubbies themselves; the baby-like chatter that they constantly engage in; the distinctive (no doubt alien) antennae that they all have implanted in their cotton wool skulls; the random rabbits; etc. All up, the Teletubbies makes for a most disturbing 30 minutes of entertainment.

Child psychologists are right to worry about their effect on the next generation. South Park and The Simpsons are right to... errr... critique them. In fact, white Western toddlers the [white Western] world over would be much better served, in my opinion, by learning about the good 'ol American values of animal cruelty, fast food addiction, death by mutilation, panoptic racism, and so on (all of which can be found in South Park and The Simpsons, amongst other quality TV shows); than they would be by obvserving the bouncing motions of a group of oversized talking beanbags.

Those flubby tubbies are starting to freak me out.

Shake what yo' Tubbie Momma gave you

Check out these videos — they're far less disturbing than the real Teletubbies TV episodes:

• Teletubbies Lean Wit It
• Y'all Wanta Single