Hey Duggee is back and I’m rather excited

There’s a trailer on BBC iPlayer trailer for new episodes of Hey Duggee, starting on 4th December. I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am.

As you’d expect of a channel aimed at toddlers, CBeebies is stuffed full of worthy, educational shows and plenty to hold the attention of younger viewers. Well, in theory, anyway; Alfie seems to like the music or title sequences at the start of most shows, but is still too young to sit through the whole episode. This means Mummy and Daddy are responsible for vetting the quality of different programmes, in the hope that we can steer him towards the most entertaining and educational.

Because, in reality, seen with a critical adult’s eye, the tone of the channel can be very uneven. There are shows that are ostensibly educational but mainly just an excuse for an entertaining adventure (Go Jetters, Octonauts – which both are very entertaining but also a bit too dramatic for very little children, and which have come in for criticism for being too merchandise-driven). At the other end of the scale, there are shows of educational intent without the slightest joy or fun at all (Numberblocks springs to mind). There are shows that seem to actively celebrate being naughty as long as everyone learns their lessons (I’m looking at you, Timmy Time, and also Bing to a certain extent). There are shows which take all you know about beloved characters and “update” them for modern audiences, with dubious results (Peter Rabbit).

With that critical adult’s eye, half of the shows don’t even make objective sense. Andy’s Prehistoric Adventures sees a man with a time machine go back millions of years so that he collect artefacts for a museum. Nobody ever seems to question from where he’s getting extinct, yet fresh, foliage and dino-eggs. And he always arrives back with just seconds to spare before the new exhibit opens. Again – he’s in a time machine. Set the thing five minutes earlier, Andy!

Bad news if you have fond childhood memories of certain shows that are still going strong: Postman Pat is a terrible delivery driver. Awful. He should be fired. Every episode of his Special Delivery Service sees him with just one job: delivering a single parcel. And every episode sees him losing the parcel, damaging it, or delivering it so late that everyone has given up hope of seeing it and are on the point of cancelling the fete / show / karaoke night or whatever. In many, many cases he has to open and use the contents of the parcel in order to accomplish his mission. Imagine if the real world were like that – your new bicycle delivered to you at one minute to midnight by a uniformed man riding your bicycle, while talking on your brand-new phone, and with a well-thumbed “new” book in his pocket to give you.

Quietly standing head-and-shoulders above all of the other content on this channel – and, I would argue, almost of all of the content on every other channel – is an unassuming, primary-coloured cartoon series about five animals and the leader of their play club. Each short episode sees Duggee lead the “Squirrels” on an adventure of some kind, from the epic to the intimate. At the end of each episode, the Squirrels are awarded a badge for their efforts.

The simplistic look-and-feel of the animation (triangular chickens!) belies a thoroughly unexpected depth and complexity to the universe that the Squirrels inhabit. Not only do the Squirrels themselves have realistic, complex and flawed characters, but the extensive supporting cast do, too. They make mistakes; they learn from one other. Sometimes, they even annoy one another: they are not perfect. Yet the Squirrels are consistently supportive and generous to everyone they meet.

There’s a mixture of educational messages being pushed – not just about collaboration and inclusivity, but also more overtly: from simple counting, shapes or colours, to higher-complexity stories about the life cycles of frogs and butterflies. Yet the educational aspect never feels forced or preachy, but fits naturally within the Squirrels’ adventures.

When the programme goes off-piste, as at rather frequently does, it is joyously ingenious. The River Badge, for example, is an episode that is ostensibly about delivering a parcel; yet it manages to be an homage to both The African Queen and Apocalypse Now, and a parody of eighties computer games, all within the confines of a seven-minute educational animated programme for children. These are not merely cheap nods to pop culture reference points, like certain long-running animated series; but they infuse the stories, and the way they are brought to life. I wholeheartedly agree with this reviewer in the Guardian who describes the execution of The Puppet Show Badge as “dizzyingly brilliant”.

It is clear that the producers have a lot of fun, and that’s deeply infectious. The surreal and freestyle writing reminds me somewhat of Willo the Wisp, a personal favourite from my own childhood – but Hey Duggee has none of the darkness, and has a far broader canvas for adventures.

In short, Hey Duggee is a series that condenses the essence of joy, friendship and childhood innocence into every episode. I love it.

2 thoughts on “Hey Duggee is back and I’m rather excited”

  1. In a live webchat with Alexander Armstrong (narrator of Hey Duggee) comes this exchange, without any particular introduction:
    Conrad_Turner: “What’s the story of how Happy the Crocodile came to be adopted by two elephants?”
    AlexanderWebchat: “One of the many charms of Hey Duggee is the way it is effortlessly inclusive. It’s just an added lustre that the show happens to include different family set ups without banging any drums about it.”
    https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/live/2017/dec/04/alexander-armstrong-webchat-pointless-singer-interview

  2. On reflection, my characterisation of Hey Duggee as being similar to Willo the Wisp is clearly way off. But there is a programme on CBeebies that shares some of Willo’s bizarre – sometimes outright macabre – surrealism. Sarah & Duck is ostensibly about a girl and her pet duck, but it is populated by a cast that includes, to name a few: playful onions; mute twins who communicate via ribbon dancing; a grumpy talking handbag; and the Moon, who can often be found shopping for art supplies or dozing on the bus.

Comments are closed.