In the Night Garden

I see so many people saying that this is a brainless waste of childrens time. And they are right. But this is not trying to be one of those educational kids shows. Its a show that you put on before the kids are going to bed, or when they have too much energy. It calms the nerves, and the fact that they are able to do that consistantly for 100 epsiodes is a miracle. The best part is that adults can watch it too. The relaxing effect carries over for all ages, so its not a torture fest for the parents watching, but a enjoyable ride for everyone.

Also, i cannot gow tihout commenting on the names. Iggle Piggle? Makka Pakka? The nonky nonk. How do you even come up with this stuff. Would recomend, even if you dont have kids.

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.

Our 2 year old niece recently started watching this program on BBC 2 and is loving every minute of it. There are not many children's programs that allow a child to sit and watch in complete silence for half an hour and be completely engrossed in it.

Derek Jacobi is a wonderful narrator and has a perfect gentle voice for a program like this.

The characters and the models are very well done and a lot of time and creativity has been put into thinking about creating unique characters and locations unlike any other children's program. The seamless transition of CG and real world sets are very well done and makes it a joy for even adults to watch and enjoy.

I can recommend this children's program for any child 1 to 3 years old and it is gentle and calm in every way a children's program should be.

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.

There seems to be quite a consensus that this doesn't have any educational value. Such a stance presumes that kids need explicit teaching and preaching. Either you need to include an alphabet in your song like Sesame Street or have some obvious moral conclusion. How silly.

Kids learn by what they see of how things are abstracted. If they are abstracted by nitwits, then they learn to be nitwits who cannot think critically. I don't have a TeeVee in my house, but I do allow my one and two year olds to watch this, because it has some very clever ideas in it.

Oh, the ideas are not in the story at all. Good ideas seldom can be; they are in how you get to the thing in the first place. Consider:

The thing is nested in a vignette of a toddler's hand being stroked to sleep. That hand morphs to a boat in another enclosing situation, one that is amazingly rich. A simple being pulls down his sail at the end of a day. The boat becomes his bed and the sail his blanket. in this level of reality, the boat then drifts and we transition to yet another layer under reality. The stars become blossoms that surround and cover the night garden, where most of our time is spent.

If you think kids don't get and appreciate this deep folding of reality, you haven't been around bright kids. It isn't what happens in the world of the story so much for them, but what that world is, how it works and how they get there.

Once in the garden, we have some events, which one could think of as a day in the life of these characters. Several things go on, only a few of these make complete sense. Many things that happen, just happen without cause or consequence. Again, think like a child and how they see the world.

Then finally we have the fourth inner world: the story we have seen in the abstract garden is recounted in drawings. This follows Ted's Law of abstraction: the abstract distance between those drawings and the puppet/animated world is the same as between that world and ours.

The crossover character, Igglepiggle once in his dream world has only a few expressive dimensions. he squeaks and he falls down. He alone seems to be able to communicate with the narrator, a sort of higher self.

Yes, some of the characters and objects have winning appeal, but it is the way this layered world is built that I think can teach my kids something worthwhile.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.