Rag, Tag and Bobtail
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Rag, Tag and Bobtail | |
|---|---|
| Format | Childrens |
| No. of episodes | 24 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | BBC |
| Running time | 13 min |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | BBC One |
| Original airing | 1953-1965 |
Rag, Tag and Bobtail was a BBC children's television programme that ran from 1953 to 1965 as the Thursday programme in the weekly cycle of Watch with Mother.
- Produced by: Freda Lingstrom and David Boisseau
- Stories: Louise Cochrane
- Narrated by: Charles E. Stidwell, David Enders and James Urquhart
- Glove puppeteers: Sam Williams and Elizabeth Williams.
There were three main characters: Rag, a hedgehog; Tag, a mouse; and Bobtail, a rabbit. Occasionally five baby rabbits appeared. The stories were simple and there were no catch-phrases like the other programmes in the cycle, but the series is still remembered with affection. Twenty-four episodes were made, plus two others that were untransmitted. Each episode was shot as a single 13-minute take.
In the dictionary, the term "rag-tag and bobtail" is a disparaging remark to describe people as just common country folk, riff-raff. An 1811 dictionary has it as tag-rag and bobtail.
In 1987, a Watch with Mother video was released by the BBC. The episode of Rag, Tag and Bobtail featured a scene where Bobtail discovered that the baby rabbits had been playing with mud-pies and they had turned black. He was unable to clean them, but in the end the mud was washed off.
