bagpuss:
"Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss, old fat furry cat-puss, Wake up, and look at this thing that I bring, Wake up, be bright, be golden and light, Bagpuss, oh hear what I sing"
i adored bagpuss. for the uninitiated this was a second hand or 'thrift' shop. nothing was really sold. bagpuss was a 'saggy old cloth cat' who belonged to emily, the owner's daughter. she loved him. but she left him in the window. go figure. there were the other characters: professor yaffle a wooden bookend bird who was a tad annoying; madeline a rag doll, the voice of reason and mother figure; gabriel the banjo-playing frog; and the mice. oh the mice. they were truly the best thing about the show. they fixed things. they would sing each episode 'we will fix it, we will fix it'. and they would sing a song about a ballet shoe. they were also militant little blighters who in one episode went on strike when told to stop singing. they were wooden carvings in a pipe organ who came alive by magic.
emily finds the things for the shop that need fixing and the critters of the shop fix em.
trivia: when i worked in a shop in london, the wonderful lydia - collegue and pal - told me she went to school with emily firmin. the girl who plays her is also the creator's daughter.
the clangers:
the clangers were a wonderous creation. little knitted mice things who lived on the moon and trilled in a strange echoey whistling way. they lived in the craters of the moon (covered by dustbin lids) and were fed by the soup dragon. there were also little things called froglets who were quite darling.
peter firmin also had a hand in this, with oliver postgate. they made a few other british classics including the bizarre 'ivor the engine'. these guys were animation gods who managed to produce the most entrancing and slightly disturbing children's classics.