Bing

Channel: CBeebies

Running Time: 8 minutes

Date: 2014-

You want to punch them already, don't you?

Premise: 

A twatty little rabbit has seemingly been abandoned by his parents into the care of a childminder literally a quarter of the size of their child. As he encounters the myriad of problems a toddler can face on a day-by-day basis, he is guided through by this diminutive carer, Flop, and his friends Pando, Sula, Padget and Amma, though they never correct him on his appalling misuse of irregular verbs. At the end of each episode, Bing relates his tale in the form of  a monologue. Even though no-one has asked him to, Flop comes waltzing in, and describes the thing that Bing has done that day, pauses for an audible colon, and states "It's a Bing Thing" (interestingly, this was also the working title for the Chandler spin-off from Friends that was never green-lit).

Stories include the time Bing accidentally left the shop without paying for a lollipop, the time he bought a toy but actually wanted a different one, and there are at least two episodes that deal with pre-school incontinence. There are 78 episodes in all, which is equal to the Moomins. I don't really like them either, so I guess that proves something.

Background: 

Ted Dewan is an American-born British writer and illustrator who wrote a series of books called 'Bing the Bunny'. He published them six years before Microsoft decided that they wanted the name for that search engine that you only ever use to search for the Google homepage. Acamar films picked it up for adaptation, and CBeebies do the rest on a weekday morning, just after Teletubbies.

Mark Rylance is the voice of Flop. Mark Rylance happily did full-frontal nudity in the unbearable arthouse film Intimacy. Mark Rylance is the BFG and is one of Britain's greatest theatre actors. It is fair to say my feelings on Mark Rylance can be described as 'mixed'.

The perfect present for someone you truly despise

Entertainment: 

Oh, Bing. Where does it all go wrong? The title sequence is a good starting point; Bing comes flying out of his house to meet his friends; Flop is too small to do anything to stop Bing running into the road if he felt like it, and social services should be picking up on this obvious safeguarding issue. One of the strangest aspects of any title sequence I have seen sees Bing trip over; Flop asks if he's alright, Bing runs on. Sula confirms 'He's OK!'. What am I supposed to feel? The mild peril of a pre-school biped rabbit falling onto grass (its natural habitat)? Bing would have far fewer problems if he just walked the way his ancestors evolved, instead of trying to anthropomorphise himself like a tit.

The stories themselves are not terrible, but my GOD does Bing like to have a whinge. I lose all my pretensions to being a tolerant 21st century parent, who reads the Guardian, enjoys Bridget Christie and avoids gendered stereotypes, and end up shouting 'Man up!', 'Grow a pair!' and 'Just choose a toy, you little wuss!'

And we must mention the grammar, whilst we're here. I am no 'Grammar Nazi', because it is one of the stupidest, most casually offensive suffixes in existence. But I am a pedant. And an English teacher. I live in a part of the world where 15 year olds regularly argue that 'tret' is the past tense of 'treat', even after I, their God, tells them otherwise. So when I hear 'taked', 'choosed' and 'falled' spewing out of the mouth of this wilfully illiterate bunny, and he is not corrected by his peers and carers, something dies inside me. Bing also says 'yup' instead of 'yes' or 'yeah', which is what man-idiot Boris Johnson does. This is the BBC; they made their radio announcers wear a dinner jacket to read the news once upon a time; now it's come to 'yup' and 'biggerer'.  

The rip-off of Night Garden's plenary synopsis is unbearable, too, as Bing goes through a repetoire of intonation that induces Pavlovian waves of nausea each time he tells his story. Plot shifts are marked by 'but then', and the 'then' is given three separate sounds, going down in the middle: 'there-uh-en', drawn out like a public hanging. Prepare to hear 'and I was sad' in that little sing-song rhythm, too, as he litters his narrative with needless embellishments. 

Flop arrives with seconds to spare to confirm, "Skateboarding: it's a Bing Thing!", or "Choosing a toy: it's a Bing Thing!". The trouble with this catchphrase is that it is applied to almost any activity you can think of; he over exaggerates to such a farcical extent: "Dropping your ice cream: it's a Bing Thing". No. It. Isn't. The currency is quickly devalued, from an already low exchange rate.

However, for the lolz, you can make up any number of inappropriate 'Bing Things' of your own. "Catching an STI in a crack house: it's a Bing Thing!" Or, my current favourite: "Cacking yourself on the Tube: it's a Bing Thing!" Where some might see only irritation, I see opportunity.

Bing the Bunny

Ratings:

Sex: Bing will obviously fall in love with Sula when he's old enough, but she'll just want to stay friends, because she believes (rightly) she can hold out for better. But that won't be for a while. There's nothing else, unless you reckon Flop and Amma take advantage of nap time to have a quick cross-species fumble in the downstairs cloakroom, the mood killed by the sound monitor they have to take in with them as an OFSTED childminding requirement. 2/10

Music: A rare strong point. After the main credit sequence, we get a Twin-Peaks-esque bass-driven jazz intro, as if we are about to be led to downtown's Bing & Flop Detective Agency, rather than a implausibly large childminder's house. The final credit sequence is quite a pretty little twinkly piece, more befitting of In the Night Garden than this monstrosity. The show's (almost) saving grace: 7/10

Plausibility: Given that we have a talking bunny rabbit, we can't start from a high baseline. That said, there is an attempt made by the writers to consider the countless scenarios where an irritating child could need something explaining to it, in terms of how the world works. Perhaps they could mix it up a bit from time to time, because the consistently happy conclusions get quite tiresome. So instead of an understanding Padget, who realises that Bing would never have taken that lollipop if he knew he had to pay for it, I'd like to have seen her tap the sign saying 'Shoplifters will be prosecuted - NO EXCEPTIONS', and have the twinkly music over the end credits accompany the image of Bing being driven away in the back of a police car. And Bing would not do well in jail. 5/10

Education: To be fair, this show does its best to imagine how you might perceive life, as, in their words, a "relatively new human being". For those of you out there who've never told your child not to run in front of a swing, and weren't planning to any time soon, episode 3 has got you covered. Has your child ever got overly attached to an idiosyncratically-shaped potato? Never fear; episode 59 is here (the potato is called Nosey). The little re-cap at the end is useful if you've forgotten key plot points and want them narrated back to you in the whiniest voice you can imagine, It's an original twist, if you've never seen 'In The Night Garden' do literally exactly the same thing, with exactly the same animation style. 6/10

Overall: Bing is more 'Bed Wetter' than 'Go Jetter'; there are few more cloyingly 'worthy' shows on the airwaves. Someone tell Speilberg to keep Rylance busy for the next few years. 2/10. 

And I know these ratings don't average out.  They're not supposed to.

The Furchester Hotel

Channel: CBeebies

Running Time: 11 minutes

This is not The Muppets Show.

Premise

In an unnamed megapolis, inbetween the skyscrapers sits the Furchester Hotel - a 'half-star' establishment run by Sesame Street characters. They're the ones who aren't Muppets but look and act a bit like Muppets, but aren't as funny, and have Elmo and the Cookie Monster. In an unerring similarity to Fawlty Towers, to which this blog will make a series of contrived and predictable comparisons, a recurring cast of presumably minimum wage employees spend the episodes solving the various problems caused by idiosyncratic guests; from a goat that won't stop eating the furnishings (as solid an argument for a credit card deposit as you will ever see), to penguins who want to use Chef's gong for tobogganing down the staircases (penguin stereotyping at its most harmless).

Usually the problems are solved by owners Funella Furchester, her husband Fergus Fuzz, and a Spanish waiter called Manuel. Just kidding; their daughter Phoebe is also closely involved, as are all those fluffy things in the picture. They occasionally break out into songs that are just unclear enough to require subtitles, and will worm their way into your head until your child is old enough to sign your euthanasia waiver.

Background

It's an Anglo-American collaboration; Funella has been Anglicised, presumably so that the BBC could keep its funding for another year. There are 104 separate episodes - so only enough for one per week for two uninterrupted years. Bearing in mind this show has only been in production since 2014, that is a major achievement of output. It really shits on Fawlty Towers, which only managed 12 episodes in four years.

Wikipedia contributors have lovingly compiled episode synopses, writing and directing credits, original air dates and trivia notes for 68 of those episodes, suggesting the end of a work experience placement that left a job still left to be done. Please feel free to contribute information for episodes 69-104 for no reason whatsoever.

Entertainment

The theme tune is indeed catchy, though brings more questions than answers : "Your room is ready for you / Just needs to get the bed". Now, I worked for years at a hotel and bar - one of those years as duty manager no less - and with this industry experience I can reveal that Mrs Furchester is being a tad overconfident - dare I say hubristic - in her assessment of the situation. A missing bed was likely to be among the first complaints of a guest staying at our hotel; we avoided these conflicts by ensuring beds did not go missing from rooms from day to day. The Cookie Monster's contribution, "Cookies come with every meal" is charmingly predictable, and though it sounds like a repetitive meal accompaniment, my wife and I stayed in a small hotel in New York City that provided a vat of pink lemonade for its guests, and it was the most amazing thing ever. We literally still talk about it to this day, so you can see why the makers of the show might have thought to include it in the opening sequence.

Oh, for fuck's sake, again?

In terms of the actual storylines, there is an endearing inevitability about so many of the problems that the staff of the Furchester will face, and as a grown up, you can feel smug about anticipating the plot twists in this pre-school series. Those with a keen eye for foreshadowing and proleptic irony will enjoy watching episodes again to pick up on shrewdly placed motifs.

Phoebe serves as a smart foil to the chaos around her, and although there are elements of farce, there is a sense that all small businesses struggle for consistency. In a hotel, where there are so many variables to consider, you can forgive the staff for their individual foibles given their obvious work ethic. To further illustrate this, there are few to no scenes where we see the characters relaxing in their own time, so Conservatives will enjoy seeing business interests come before workers' rights. There are no racist characters, so that's another in the 'plus column' when compared with Fawlty Towers' Major Gowen. 

Elmo gets a bit irritating after the first few words.

Ratings:

Sex: Given the setting, you might expect something a bit racier, but ultimately this is an innuendo-free zone. Some celebrity excitement though, with episode 56's guest 'Chick Swagger', who comes to perform his latest song 'The Tail Feather Shake', which might set some pulses racing for people who shouldn't be watching children's TV. Phoebe is quite hot, and seems to be single, though she is not yet on Tinder. 5/10

Phoebe: Not yet on Tinder

Education: There is a genuine problem-solving aspect to the show, but they are unlikely to be used by Google as interview brain-teasers. 3/10

Music: As well as the lyrically challenging theme tune, there are some recurring favourites, such as 'A Furchester Never Gives Up', 'Catastrophe' (which occurs more often than you would wish for a hotel still awaiting its first TripAdvisor review), and the rather needy and desperate 'Don't Check Out'. They will run around your brain like a Kenyan marathon runner.

Plausibility: The hotel is nestled between many high-rise office blocks, and you have to think that by now, Funella and Fergus would have cashed in on the premises, and retired somewhere a bit more peaceful. They seem to go through a lot of stress for a building that is clearly in disrepair, and they would do well to sell out to a developer who could really do something with the space. Given that, it is nice to see an independent name going it alone in an increasingly competitive world. Nice touches of realism in the episode 'Hotel Inspector', which definitely does not steal the premise and title of Fawlty Towers' 'The Hotel Inspectors'.

Overall: A genuinely charming addition to the schedules. A bit of farce, a bit of music, a lot of colour, and enough British influence to not make your child's grandparents angry about America. A bit heavy going for the very early morning schedules; any time past 8:00am and it should set you up well for the day. 7/10