Button Moon

The catchy theme tune ('We've been to Button Moon, we've followed Mr Spoon') was the work of Peter Davison and Sandra Dickinson. It set the scene, and wrapped up each 11 minute episode, of the tales of the Spoon Family and their journeys to the mysterious planet which looked, well, suspiciously like a button, where lived irritating characters such as the West Country voiced teddy.

Aimed at pre-schoolers it quickly gained a cult following amongst teenagers and students (as did many other series of the 1980s). It seems there were fewer episodes than I remember - rather like the legendary Mr Benn ...

Yet another programme from my wasted youth, 'Button Moon' maintains a weird power all these years later. As with all the best kids' shows, 'Button Moon' was dedicated to helping its young audience's imaginations sprout from the normalities of everyday life. All the world was a potential playground. Thus, kitchen utensils become the restless Mr Spoon and his family, baked bean tins become spaceships, cardboard boxes become houses. All good staples of a healthy child's imaginative development.

However, this same approach helped give the show a very weird, very trippy atmosphere, ensuring it cult TV status years later. It looks as if it were literally filmed in a dustbin. Bananas fly through the sky with green bean wings; party dresses suffer from depression; umbrellas play golf. In one particularly inspired sequence, Mr Spoon, trapped on top of a squealing Royal Jelly, is rescued by a small army of gingerbread men wielding a ladder constructed from chocolate finger biscuits.

Ineffably English - check out the thinly disguised Heinz logo on the baked-bean tin spaceship, for instance, or the cockney troll in the 'Little Goats Gruff' episode - it features terrific narration by Robin Parkinson, and a theme tune that will haunt you till your dying day. 'Button Moon' is surely the pinnacle of early 1980s English children's psychedelic sci-fi puppetry weirdness.

I watched this a couple of days ago for the 1st time in like 30 years ! I only vaguely remember it as a child - I was born in 1982 - I guess the theme tune was the most memorable part !

I forgot how aggressively D.I.Y this was ! The main characters have a combination of dishes for heads, spoons for arms and bottles for torsos, while the other characters are less humanoid and more bizarre; literally just bottles/containers, clothes, even vacuum cleaners, possibly with eyes glued on ! Background props consist of brooms for trees, a funnel on top of a 'Heinz' can for a spaceship, and most essentially a button for a moon. Kind of the same degree of randomness, eccentricity and full-on D.I.Y as the props in The Young Ones !

The stories are simple, naive and charming; appropriate for younger viewers yet cute and funny for all ages. The theme tune - sung by Sandra Dickinson of 2Point4 children fame - is cute and 'magical'. The overall aesthetic is obviously ultra-kitsch, but in a charming, vibrant and idiosyncratic kind of way; you always recognize a Button Moon set !

Overall, a wholesome '80s classic that appealed to all ages, and probably still does; I was reintroduced to this through DVD !

What a fantastic show this was... I was such a fan as a toddler! I loved that theme tune and thought "I want to go to Button Moon!" Where lives the most annoying sounding doll! and a teddy bear that sounds like a west country cider drinker... POETRY in MOTION!!!

This was on of the oddest kids programmes from the early 80's. Mr Spoon (a wooden spoon with a big nose) and his wife and child lived under the gaze of Button Moon (a large yellow button) which they went up to in the space ship that our hero Mr Spoon had made. Basically it was hand held wooden spoons over a black velvet backdrop being moved about with a narration , and i know that i was too old to be watching it when i did but it was hypnotic. A very strange one indeed that has to be seen to be believed.