Flower Pot Men

For other uses, see Flowerpot Men (disambiguation).

For other uses of the names "Bill and Ben", see Bill and Ben (disambiguation).

The Flower Pot Men is a British children's programme, produced by BBC television, first transmitted in 1952, and repeated regularly for more than twenty years, which was produced in a new version in 2000. The show was the basis for a comic strip of the same name in the children's magazine Robin.

Original series

Originally, the programme was part of a BBC children's television series titled Watch with Mother, with a different programme each weekday, most of them involving string puppets. The Flower Pot Men was the story of two little men made of flower pots who lived at the bottom of an English suburban garden. The characters were devised by Freda Lingstrom and Maria Bird. Three later stories were written by Hilda Brabban. The puppeteers were Audrey Atterbury and Molly Gibson. The voices and other noises were produced by Peter Hawkins, Gladys Whitred and Julia Williams. The narration for all episodes was done by Maria Bird.

The plot changed little in each episode. The programme always took place in a garden, behind a potting shed. The third character was Little Weed, of indeterminate species, somewhat resembling a sunflower or dandelion with a smiling face, growing between two large flowerpots. The three were also sometimes visited by a tortoise called Slowcoach. While the "man who worked in the garden" was away having his dinner the two Flower Pot Men, Bill and Ben, emerged from the two flowerpots. After a minor adventure a minor mishap occurs; someone is guilty. "Which of those two flower pot men, was it Bill or was it Ben?" the narrator trills, in a quavering soprano; the villain confesses; the gardener's footsteps are heard coming up the garden path; the Flower Pot Men vanish into their pots and the closing credits roll. The final punch-line was, "and I think the little house knew something about it! Don't you?"

The Flower Pot Men spoke their own, highly inflected version of English, called Oddle Poddle. However, the popular notion that they ever said "Flobbalob" or "Flobbadob" is an urban myth; if one listened carefully to their banter, one could hear words like "Loblob" ("lovely") and "Flobberpop" ("flowerpot"), either of which could have given rise to the urban myth. At the end of each adventure, they would say bye-bye to each other and to the Little Weed - "Babap ickle Weed" - to which the Weed would inevitably reply with tremulous cadence "Weeeeeeeeeeed". This language, like that of the Teletubbies in the 1990s, was invented by Peter Hawkins (who also voiced the Daleks) and was criticised for hindering children from learning proper English.

2001 series

On 2 January 2001, a second series named Bill and Ben began on CBBC, this time involving stop-motion animation and full colour, and made by Cosgrove Hall Films with a team of ten animators. Bill and Ben was narrated by voice actor Jimmy Hibbert.

Many additions were implemented:

• A mean rosebush with buds in the neighbour's garden named Thistle.
• A magpie named Pry, obsessed by shiny treasures, often just bottle caps.
• A hedgehog named Boo.
• A worm named Whoops.
• A talking tomato named Ketchup.
• Weed is no longer a weed, but an enormous sunflower. Rather than whining, "Weed!", she spoke proper English. She played an "earth mother" role to Bill and Ben. She often assisted them.

UK VHS releases

VHS title	Release date	Episodes
Bill and Ben Flower Pot Men (BBCV 4208)	1989	Musical Vegetables, Scarecrow, Flying Boots, Icicles
Bill and Ben Flower Pot Men 2: Tales from the Bottom of the Garden (BBCV 4362)	1990	Bath in Hat, Cabbages, Bellows, Stickmen
The Very Best of Bill and Ben Flower Pot Men (BBCV 5106)	1993	Stickmen, Scarecrow, Bath in Hat, Musical Vegetables, Cabbages
Bill and Ben: Garden Games (BBCV [7188])	2001	Weed Sees The World, Phwoaarr, Here Comes the Sun, Ben Has a Visitor, Treasure Garden

External links

• Toonhound on the Flowerpot Men
• CBeebies - Bill and Ben at bbc.co.uk
• Whirligig TV
• Flower Pot Men (1952)  at the Internet Movie Database
• Bill and Ben (2001)  at the Internet Movie Database
• British Film Institute Screen Online
• The Museum of Broadcast Communication