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Bagpuss row: BBC 'wrong' to end classic after 13 episodes, say creators’ families

Bagpuss row: BBC 'wrong' to end classic after 13 episodes, say creators’ families

A short run, a long memory

It lasted just 13 episodes. Fifty years on, it’s still the show millions remember first. That’s the heart of the row now rekindled around Bagpuss, the “saggy old cloth cat” who first padded onto British screens in 1974 and never really left the nation’s imagination.

Marking the show’s 50th anniversary, the families of its creators say the BBC got it wrong when it stopped the series after one short run. Daniel Postgate, son of co-creator Oliver Postgate, says the pair were happy to keep making more but hit a wall with commissioners who wanted something “zoomy” and “sugary” for children. His view is blunt: the audience proved them wrong. In a 1999 BBC poll, Bagpuss was voted the UK’s favourite children’s programme—beating shows with far bigger budgets and far longer runs.

For anyone who didn’t grow up with it, the set-up was simple and warm. A little girl named Emily brings a found object to a small shop. Bagpuss wakes, the worn-out item gets a story, and the cast brings it back to life. The pace is unhurried, the music gentle, the colours soft and sepia-tinged. It felt like being read to before bed—because that’s exactly how it was built.

And what a cast. The carved woodpecker Professor Yaffle, the worldly toad Gabriel, the rag doll Madeleine, and a chorus of cheeky mice who ran the Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ. The show came from Smallfilms, the tiny Kent-based operation run by artist and puppeteer Peter Firmin and animator-narrator Oliver Postgate—the same duo behind The Clangers, Ivor the Engine and Noggin the Nog. Firmin hand-built the characters and sets; Postgate wrote, animated and voiced. Emily on screen was Firmin’s daughter, Emily Firmin, filmed in photographs that gave the opening its old-world charm.

So why only 13 episodes? The families argue the decision wasn’t about quality or demand. It was about fashion. In the mid-to-late 1970s, children’s TV was starting to pivot to faster editing, bolder colours, louder soundtracks, and a more immediate hit. That trend would only accelerate in the multi-channel era. Bagpuss, with its storyteller’s cadence and handmade look, went in the opposite direction. Even back then, that made some executives nervous.

But the “short run equals failure” logic never stuck. The series was repeated for years. Teachers showed it in classrooms. Parents handed it down. The songs by Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner—part lullaby, part folk session—stayed in people’s heads. The sepia shop window, the yawn, the slow stretch, the idea that broken things still have stories to tell—these weren’t relics. They were the point.

There’s also the practical side. Stop-motion and model work are painstaking. Smallfilms produced its magic out of a barn, not a vast studio. A 13-episode order for a hand-made show wasn’t unusual at the time. What’s unusual is what happened next: those 13 episodes kept working. They aged well. They got quoted. They sold on VHS and DVD. They showed up in exhibitions. Nostalgia played a part, sure, but the gentleness and wit did the heavy lifting.

The creators never got to revisit the cat themselves. Oliver Postgate died in 2008, aged 83. Peter Firmin died in 2018. What remains is their archive, their method, and an audience that still shows up for it. That’s partly why talk of a remake draws interest now. The Clangers—another Smallfilms favourite—returned in 2015 with new episodes while keeping the old soul intact. It can be done without sanding off the quirks.

If a revival comes, the challenge is obvious: keep the hush without losing today’s kids. You’d want the sepia wash and the sleepy wake-up, not a neon reboot. You’d want music that breathes. You’d want a narrator who tells, not shouts. Most of all, you’d want stories built around care—finding something worn-out, listening to it, making it matter again. That’s a hard sell in a market built on speed, but it’s also why the cat might stand out.

There’s a broader debate here about what children actually enjoy versus what adults assume they want. Daniel Postgate’s point is that the BBC misread the room back then. The ratings and the poll later on suggest kids don’t need constant fireworks. Shows like Bluey today, with their calm rhythms and family-first stories, hint that there’s room for quiet confidence too. Not every hit for under-7s is cut to a music-video beat.

Bagpuss’s legacy reaches beyond nostalgia. Museums have pulled in crowds with its hand-made artistry. University educators still point to it when talking about storytelling structure—found object, memory, music, resolution. And in an age of repair cafes and second-hand markets, the show’s central idea—mending what’s been discarded—feels oddly current. It’s slow TV with a purpose.

What happens next depends on rights holders, funding, and whether there’s a broadcaster willing to bet on softness. The families say they’d welcome a new series if it stays true to the craft that made the original work. That means model-making, not just pixels; real textures and simple shapes; the sense of a small world where everything is touched by human hands.

Half a century later, the cat still purrs. The question now isn’t whether people care; they clearly do. It’s whether a modern commissioning meeting can back the quietest show in the room—again—and trust children to come closer rather than turning up the volume.

The show, at a glance

The show, at a glance

  • First broadcast: 1974 on the BBC; 13 episodes produced by Smallfilms.
  • Creators: Oliver Postgate (writer, animator, narrator) and Peter Firmin (artist, model-maker).
  • Key characters: Bagpuss; Professor Yaffle (woodpecker); Gabriel (toad); Madeleine (rag doll); the mice of the Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ; Emily (played by Emily Firmin).
  • Music: Sandra Kerr and John Faulkner, whose folk-influenced songs became part of the show’s signature.
  • Recognition: In 1999, a BBC poll crowned it the nation’s favourite children’s TV programme.

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