Pob is the Official Mascot of Before40!! - But Who is he?
A puppet boy called Pob, who writes his name by steaming up the inside of the TV screen and tracing it out, invites celebrity guests to his garden to entertain him.
Pob was the brainchild of Anne Wood of Ragdoll Productions, making him older brainbrother to the Teletubbies. Like them, Pob would speak in his own unorthodox dialect.
Channel 4 doesn’t have a reputation for children’s programmes, but Pob got up to some classic mischief during his late 80s run. He gained recent recognition when Pob’s Programme came in at #60 on Channel 4’s 100 Greatest Kids TV Shows.
A Typical Day For Pob:
Pob’s day starts when his celebrity visitor for the show finds a label on the gates of Pob’s garden:
‘If in my programme you would be,
Wind the wool and follow me.’
They follow the trail of stripy wool attached. Winding the wool as they go, the visitor finds a 2nd label:
‘Wind it slowly, wind it fast,
A secret you will find at last.’
As the wool is wound, it tugs on the source - Pob’s sweater. Pob jumps to life, and mists up the screen so he can trace out his name.
Then, the visitor reads a story, or reads it later and now finds a label with missing words - a rhyming puzzle. Pob helps his visitor to guess the words using dressing-up and drawings. (To help one celebrity get the word ‘beat’, Pob beat her at tennis with a carpet beater, and threw in a John McEnroe impersonation).
In fact, Pob interacts with most of the guests on the programme. After Alan Dart has made his piece of handicraft for the day, Pob plays with it. (When Alan made a Pob mask, Pob told him to add more freckles.) The cartoons are often edited so it looks like Pob is influencing the action. Often, Pob draws Dick King-Smith a symbol, and Dick then takes his dog on a nature trail to investigate. (a criss-cross pattern that Pob had drawn turned out to represent the alcoves of an old dovecote, where Dick found an Easter egg.) Pob also likes to mimic his musical and dancing guests. (Pob once tried to copy a rhythmic gymnast with a ribbon, but wrapped himself up in his ribbon.)
He's striped, he wiped, he's never touch-typed. I may be wrong. (By kind permission of crash.to/pob)
Almost finally, the celebrity visitor reads a poem. Sometimes, they then visit Pob’s tree, where he hangs pictures and letters and handicraft sent in to him. Then, the visitor sends Pob a toy related to the earlier story. The toy is attached to Pob’s wool, so he ropes it in, to play with while he uses ‘spit & polish’ to wipe the end credits off the screen a few at a time. (One celebrity sent Pob a pair of sunglasses, which turned him into a pop idol with screaming fans.)
After this, the celebrity says goodbye, Pob pops up to plug his latest newsletter, then closes things by blowing out a candle (held by Ragdoll Productions’ trademark ragdoll). Finally, the next celebrity visitor comes to the gate, realises they are a week too early, and leaves.
Watch Pob Here:-
Know Where Pob is now? Email me with details of your findings
