Olobob Top
Season 1, Episode 11: "Whooshy Wotsit" (5 minutes)
UK: Cloth Cat Animation
CBeebies, Monday 30 October, 13:25
Every now and then, I see something that just defies explanation. This is one of those times.
Olobob Top stars three sinister freaks who resemble a small child's paintings. This episode doesn't name them, so I'll just call them the Creeps. Because they give me the creeps. They live in a yellow void filled with ugly patterned blob-trees.
The Creeps are playing Snap when they notice something whooshing past the door, so they go outside to investigate. They see some tracks on the ground, and the thing whooshes past again. The smallest Creep declares it to be a "whooshy wotsit". Immediately, however, the Wotsit is revealed to be a giant wearing roller skates. Obviously.
The giant, called Grown Up, is out of control, so it's up to the Creeps to find a way to stop him.
Nightmare fuel
We transition into a musical fever dream (which I assume features in every episode), in which the Creeps sing about going to Olobob Top, whatever that might be. Once there, they are provided with some geometric shapes, which they put together like Lego in order to build a solution to the problem.
Obviously, the solution is to build King Jelly, a man with who wears a jelly as a crown and carries a spoon-shaped sceptre. The reason being that "jelly makes everything better". His Majesty throws his crown onto into Grown Up's path, and it acts as a brake for the roller skates. The narrator declares that "jelly really does make everything better," and the King gives everyone jelly.
Pure trash
It's just complete, utter nonsense, and I can't see that any child would enjoy it. Firstly the art style is eye-bleedingly awful...in some respects it is like Patchwork Pals, being constructed from textured cut-out shapes, but whereas the patchwork characters are well-proportioned, cute and appealing, the Creeps are lanky, hideous and colour-clashing. The characters have no personalities. No time is given in which the child viewer can solve the mystery of what the "whooshy wotsit" is. And when the Creeps construct a solution to the problem, it's a completely stupid solution which a child could never anticipate.
How to do it better
It could have been so much better scripted, lads.
The Creeps could look at the tracks on the ground, and one of them says, "Hmm, it looks like the whoosy wotsit has wheels..."
"Maybe if we follow these tracks, we can find the whoosy wotsit!"
A bit further down, they find a shoelace... "What sort of thing has wheels and shoelaces?" "Some kind of shoe with wheels?"
Give the child some time to work it out, and then reveal that it's someone on roller skates.
Add some kind of drama: a cliff edge, or a big tree..."Oh no! We need to help Grown Up before he gets hurt!"
Hold the viewer's hand so that he can anticipate the solution:-
"How can we help Grown Up?"
"We need something soft, to stop him from getting hurt."
"Something soft and bouncy."
"Something soft, bouncy, and delicious!" says the little one, who is a bit of a greedy guts.
This lets the viewer work out the eventual solution of jelly.
Once Grown Up has been saved, give some kind of message at the end. "Thank you so much! I would have hurt myself if you hadn't helped me! Next time I'll be sure to go a lot slower when I'm skating."
Kids love being able to work out what will happen next. It pleases them when they get the answer right. You have to give them that opportunity; don't just throw random nonsense at them just because "they're kids and they don't know any better."
And please make it all less ugly.
Available to watch online until 28 November 2017
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