In the Night Garden

I absolutely love 'In The Night Garden'. The Characters of Iggle-Piggle, Makka-Pakka, Upsy Dasiy, The Tomilboos, The Pontipine Family (The rearly seen Wotingers who live next door to the Pontipines, The Ninky-Nonk, The Pinky-Ponk, The Harwhos and the Titifers. All these wonderful characters you can't help but love them. Set in a magical garden that only comes to life at night when your between a state of being awake and asleep. It really is a fantastic program for children but also wonderful for adults to watch with there kids. Now i myself have no children but I have always loved children's' programs (i've always been a big kid at heart). In The Night Garden is a wonderful program I absolutely love it and watch it ever single night on the Cbeebies channel I think it's much better and more entertaining then any adult program on tv. It's such a sweet, cute and beautifully made program. I like each of the characters songs and the things the have such as Iggle-Piggle's Blanket, Upsy Daisy's Bed that she sometimes pulls along, Makka-Pakka's trike called his 'Og-Pog', The funny Tomilboos Unn,Ohh and EE with there trousers hanging outside there tree-house home on there washing line. The way each of the characters interact with each other is always lovely to watch. I love the simple adventures, the songs and the stories all set in a forever sunny garden and it's all tied together with the great Derek Jacobi's narration (I don't think nobody could of narrated it better then him). It really is a gorgeous program and such a joy to watch every single evening. I'm surprised 'In The Night Garden' has never won any tv awards because it so deserves to. I certainly am a big fun of 'In The Night Garden', It's created by a chap by the name of Andrew Davenport who gave the world the equally wonderful 'Teletubbies'. Andrew's latest offering for the pre-school crowd is yet another wonderful and amazing program called 'Moon and Me' which only started on Cbeebies just a couple of days go.

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand In the Night Garden. The humor is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Makka Pakka's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation - his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realize that they're not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike In the Night Garden truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Lord Pakka's existencial catchphrase "Makka Pakka," which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Andrew Davenport's genius unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools... how I pity them. 😂 And yes by the way, I DO have an In The Night Garden tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- And even they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand.

The original remit for this show wasn't to entertain but rather to bridge the part of the day between learning and running around generally being a wee kid and bed time. This it does admirably. Besides, we shouldn't make the error of thinking that children's TV need always be educational. This desire to constantly bombard children (in this case pre-schoolers) with information is a bit tedious and its amusing to see the same tired arguments that were leveled at the Tellietubbies rolled out again. Kids aren't machines, they need a bit of nonsense from time to time the same way we adults do. Top marks for this one...especially

Like any caring family member, I'm concerned about what my niece watches and what lessons she is learning especially at such a young age. I outright refuse to allow my Sister (her mum) to put anything on I consider wasteful and generally trash (cough spongebob cough).

I'm going to out right admit that at first I hated the Idea of ITNG until I actually saw the effect the show has on my niece. She is literally Mesemerized by the show, and sitting with her watching it I can see why.

The whole point of this show is not to be witty, educational or have some deeper meaning to it; it's simply there so parent/child, family/child can watch the show together for half an hour of calming TV before bedtime. All in all I believe my niece loves it so much because its really the time she gets to relax and enjoy being a kid.

I'm sorry, but If you are forcing your child to watch educational shows or learn something every minute of the day, you are awful, awful parents. You can't cram knowledge into your kids and expect them to retain everything. Is that how you learnt as a child? Relentless, unforgiving absorption of knowledge? Like hell you did.

The calm, quiet breaks and relaxing nature of ITNG are the periods that lets kids process the information they have learnt without burdening them with more things to try learn and understand. Stop forcing your own social inadequacies on your kids, and just sit back and enjoy some good old magical adventure with some colourful and enjoyable characters to watch. It's fun, you can sing along and generally enjoy being with your family without having to think about anything. And played about an hour before bedtime makes the task so much easier. I'd much rather put my niece to bed after watching half an hour of this peaceful, calming, magical TV show than force another round of learning to count/read/dance/understand the importance of the race-class divide in modern America (aka Sesame Street).

I will concede the education aspects are lacking (hence 8 stars). So here's a solution: don't have it be the Only show your kids get to watch. But don't dismiss it either simply on face value, because I can tell you; you'd be missing out otherwise.

Who said children need to be educated 100% of the time? This show is just 100% entertainment for children, which is fine. They love it, I love it, it's great. Kids don't need to be taught something every minute of every day. What's wrong with the wonder and fantasy that this brilliant show brings? Let the children be children and enjoy the adventures. On a different note, if there's one thing I don't like about the show, it's the repetition. Too much of the same thing too often (the Ponti-Pines for example). Still, apart from that, the fantasy setting works extremely well, making me wonder where it's shot: must be someplace very beautiful, that's for sure!