What TV shows did you watch as a kid?
When Artificial Intelligence (AI) threatens the jobs of actors, special effect stunts persons and extras in TV and film, because of the realism achievable by simulated scenes and unlikely animated characters, I wonder why a string-puppet, with his strings obvious, and his nature as an inanimate object without nuance of expression clear, could have been popular when I was a child. However, I cannot ever forget Muffin the Mule though I cannot remember at what age I saw him on our miniature, by today’s standards but perhaps by those then too, black and white TV. But I remember him (for after all he lived in my mind) bucking about in lieu of being able to actually walk across the scene, mute and narrated by a female BBC received pronunciation voice, we called on our council estate ‘posh’ because that word meant much the same as the word ‘patronising’. Even then I remember thinking how the tone was based on an assumption that people other than an elite were not only stupid but grateful to be reminded to be so by ladies talking down to you. After all, school was like that already and, even in West Yorkshire, RP told us all our accented talk made us ripe for social exclusion amongst the elite.
As I remember Muffin I remember only his look and his gait and the laughter it provoked. My prize toy one Christmas was a Muffin I could animate myself. But that didn’t work for me, already suggesting that animation then if not now was a matter of magical thinking. We believed Muffin could move without strings, needed no human intervention, was a whole being in our childish mind ruled by wishes. He existed.
I do not know if I dare ever see Muffin film now. It would disappoint precisely because it threatened the way we hold onto the magic the ruled our infancy.
All love
Steve
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