The Teletubbies of Siena

My cousin Erin and I share very few cultural connections for people who grew up in the same family. Even our taste in Adam Sandler movies is completely nonoverlapping (we have not seen the same ones, apparently), and really, when you come to think about it, there is not very much range in Adam Sandler’s movies. (No offense--they’re generally quite cute--I’ve seen The Wedding Singer about nine times—maybe twelve—but really, there is a working formula there that is just not messed with too much.) So, it came as something of a surprise when I discovered that Erin and I were joined in mutual and enduring dislike of the teletubbies.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Teletubbies, they are small, color-coded creatures who squeal and giggle a lot and talk weird baby language. Each one has a different shape on its head, and they also happen to have little television monitors implanted

in their little tubby tummies. Tele-tubbies. Get it?

The Teletubbies were first created by Anne Wood and Andrew Davenport and have won several prestigious awards because the program had unusually high production values and generally promoted wholesome good fun that was also educationally sound. It is designed for pre-school children.

I find the Teletubbies very hard to watch.

My friends find this a bit odd. Likely because I have some rather juvenile likes, and also because I do enjoy many items that are not well-produced or educationally sound.

(Right: Teletubbies, Dipsy, La-La, Po and Tinky Winky)

I can sit contentedly through almost any non-horror type movie that does not feature John Candy or Bill Murray (I'm not so much with pratfall), although I have watched Groundhog Day and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles each several times with a high degree of enjoyment.

I can watch 4.5 hours of “Spot” videos without losing my composure. I like Smurfs so much that I went to the Musee de Bande Desinee in Brussels to buy French-language Schroumpf comics (three times). I watched the Care Bears movie without gagging (the art by Elena Kucharik is really pretty).

And I even sat several times through Land Before Time VI in which a group of young herbivorous dinosaurs find a baby tyrannosaurus, whom they name “Chomper,” and proceed to bring it back to its large and voracious parents despite the fact that it keeps trying to eat them. It’s a musical.

No, I’m not kidding.

Yes, several times.

In one weekend.

So, I think it is fair to say that I have a fairly high tolerance for the saccharine.

(Left: Care Bears from American Greetings.)

I can’t watch the Teletubbies. It’s something to do with the squealing, the television tummies and also the uptake among the gay-lesbian-transgendered community about the purple Teletubbie with a triangle on his head. He carries a purse. I'm fairly certain that the program's creators did not intend for this to happen.

For those of you who don’t know, a purple or lavender triangle was the Nazi symbol for homosexuals, who they were made to wear their symbol much like the Jewish community were forced to wear a star. Personally, I think that the gay-lesbian-transgendered community deserves a better mascot than a squealing, giggling part-television animal that doesn’t seem to be able to speak articulately. Earring Magic Ken is a bit limited, I know, but still, we’re talking about a community of reasonable adults, who deserve a more dignified mascot. In my opinion, of course, which is only worth as much as anyone else's opinion.

Which brings me to Siena, a lovely city and the capitol of the province of Siena in Tuscany. It’s still a medieval city because it was conquered by Florence, which halted all building in the 14^thor 15^th century, so the city is quite authentic except in a few particulars, which make it kind of like Disneyland but without the animatronics.

(Above) Tuscany.

For example, no one throws excrement and vegetable peelings out into the streets, which would have been a highly authentic and accurate medieval touch. Of course, there are not a lot of animals out and about the streets, except for dogs, which are all on leashes.

The streets are cleaned every day.

There’s also a lot of pizza and Coca-Cola (the nice European kind in those cool tall cans) to be had, which is probably a bit post-medieval. Although I do understand that there were medieval versions of Coke such as "wine" and "mead."

Before I visited Tuscany, I had an idea that it was all stuccoed and rustic, in muted ochres and in all ways far outside the commercial interests of, say, the local shopping mall in Camden NJ or Conshohocken PA. Not that I do not love Camden and Conshohocken, but still, do they have to be everywhere?

Imagine my surprise at finding a Mc Donald’s right near my hotel (Ok---in a rustic stone building, but still...) within minutes of arriving. It seems to be closed now, but at the time it was teeming with Italians. I had followed directions from the taxi driver for the discount clothing store because my suitcase had decided that it would prefer to stay in Frankfurt rather than joining me in Italy. So, I was prepared for a certain amount of commercial US culture… and then I saw the teletubbies.

I was walking back from the office into the walled section of the city, looking back from the Neon-haloed Virgin—no, it’s not tacky at all. Think typical, rustic-looking Tuscan street, rough-hewn stone buildings here and there, a medieval arch a couple of blocks ahead, and a picturesque little church. Outside is an old and charming little statue of the Blessed Virgin, crowned with a blue neon halo. The color of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s light saber before it was digitally remastered.

Trust me, it’s simply charming.

Anyway, I was looking back from the Neon-haloed Virgin into the Singer sewing machine store, which was having a soldi, when there to my wondering eyes appeared…teletubbies. Several teletubbies, jammed onto a shelf, and not at all part of the soldi. Once I saw those, I saw teletubbies everywhere. Well, not really, but there were a huge selection of teletubbie-realted products in the toy store near to Piazza del Campo, and I saw a few here and there in some other stores.

Compared to Smurfs (which I saw only in the toy store) or dinosaurs (ditto), teletubbies were the most popular children’s item, aside from Hello Kitty!, who also happens to be popular with young adults and features in some juniors boutiques and bookstores.

And Italians are just so…stylish, what with bella figura and all. I mean really, Ferragamo v. teletubbie should be self-evident. When I first spotted the teletubbies I thought about how Erin taught her daughter to say “yuck!” and make a Mr. Yuk face whenever teletubbies were mentioned. I manged not to do this in Siena, which is good, because I wouldn’t want anyone thinking Americans are weird and inelegant. I did trip over my own feet, though, which probably didn't help. When it struck me…the French absolutely love Jerry Lewis. And why? Because he is a stupid American—or at least that’s what my friend’s sister-in-law told her. Could this have something to do with their teletubbularity?

I’m just relieved that the teletubbies were a British import.

Images: Duomo in Siena. Image from Wikipedia by Ronen Perry. Used under Gnu license. Provinces of Tuscany. Public domain image also from Wikipedia.

Teletubbies. Also from wikipedia: a screenshot of a copyrighted television program or station ID. The copyright is most likely owned by the company or corporation that produced it. Care Bears, copyright American Greetings. Original art by Elena Kucharik.

Fair use rationale for copyrighted characters and images: The use of a limited number of web-resolution screenshots for identification and critical commentary qualifies as fair useunder United States copyright law. This use does not limit the commercial value of the original and is nondefamatory.