Teletubbies Return: The Tinky Winky Interview
The rebooted Teletubbies show premiered on the BBC earlier this month, and the show will make its Nick Jr. debut in the U.S. in 2016. After a 15-year hiatus, the Teletubbies are hot again. Tinky Winky sat down for an interview.
Q: The world wasn’t necessarily waiting for a Teletubbies reunion, but wasn’t necessarily against it, either. Why now?
TW: Not to be immodest, but the world has caught up with us. We were digital communicators to what would become the first wave of Millennials. Our bellies are television screens. In our latest incarnation, they are actual touch screens. We bring the content that toddlers want, that they demand before their morning snooze. We were the original nap app.
Q: During the first run, there were 365 episodes. And now plans for 60 more? What do you have left to say? Can you fill that many episodes?
TW: Po and I became vegans in 2010. We have something to say about organic farming, and we have plenty of green space with which to work. We’ll do everything on raised beds, and the food will be sent to market promptly. Fresh matters.
Personally, I would like to try more dream episodes, like when Tony Soprano coma-dreamt he was a businessman on a trip to Orange County. Blew. My. Mind. I’m not upset about the Sopranos series finale, by the way. We talked about something similar in our original series finale, with Po walking into a tornado, then cut to black. Later, on the director’s-cut DVD, you would see she was simply feeling the air billowing from Noo-noo’s backside, because, you know, vacuum cleaners need to spew the air they bring in with the dirt. Take. Give. Take. Give. It never happened, though. Some people have speculated that everything we did existed in a dream world, but ask Dipsy if it was a dream when he tripped on a sprinkler outside the Tubbytronic Superdome and fractured his femur. Now he knows when it will rain.
Q: How have you kept busy during your hiatus?
TW: I told myself it was time to chill-ax. Did a deep dive into yoga, as I had some lumbar discomfort from some of the more physical Noo-noo episodes that I wouldn’t wish on anyone, and yes, that includes Barney, whom I like, actually. Surfed and lived on shrimp and steak in Baja. Dipsy was briefly a contributing editor for Fast Company. He always had something to say, a vaguely angry undercurrent, but was constrained by our dialogue, which is rather — how do I put it without the producers again refusing to order guacamole for the lunch table as Tubby punishment — simple and measured.
Laa-Laa immersed herself in self-assertiveness training, and I like the results. Much sassier. Po, who is Cantonese, returned to Guangdong and appeared as a mou child warrior in several operas. She has gloriously spastic facial expressions that translate to deeply felt underlying emotions, much like Desi Arnaz, to whom we are eternally grateful for essentially inventing the rerun. Po is the fan favorite. She’s on Instagram. Bernie Sanders follows.
Q: We see you still have your red handbag, the stuff of some controversy in 1999. Your makers called you not gay, not straight, simply a character on a children’s television series, but things have changed since then. Did you ever come out, as it were, or do you continue to maintain a sexual neutrality?
TW: There’s no need to come out, as you put it. I am what I am. This skin don’t shed. There’s not a zipper.
Q: OK. People assume you are the boss in the group. True?
TW: There is no boss in the Teletubbies. I’m not the leader. I’m one of four. The media wants to start a Susanna Hoffs thing with me, but it’s a non-starter. I talked to Susanna about it, and she said as long as the people around you love you, it doesn’t matter what others say. Sometimes the Tubbies dance like Egyptians, by the way.
Q: Will you take a different approach to the new show? Is today’s toddler different than yesterday’s toddler?
TW: They seem to enjoy yoga more. I saw a kid in a cobra pose at Nordstrom’s the other day while waiting for his mother to finish paying for Clinique with Bonus Gift. Kids are more centered now. And smarter. When their parents say the creamed spinach tastes like tubby custard, you know, the classic con, kids plug in the ear buds and listen to Twenty-One Pilots.
Beyond that, I’d love to have guest stars, like on “The Jackie Gleason Show.” Some of the new parent stars, maybe. This Cumberpatch, or whatever, I like him. People with juice and the sippy cup to carry it in. That’s a metaphor that is also literal.
Q: Will the same baby play the role of the sun’s face in the new episodes?
TW: No, that baby grew up and learned to code. She’s wealthy, she invested. When she grins and babbles gleefully now, it’s because T-Mobile jumped a point. We have a new baby for the reboot. We were looking for a baby with more than 25k followers, someone on Hootsuite.
Q: How does it feel to know that the children of the first generation you entertained now have children who will enjoy your show?
TW: Let me tell you what Kanye said to me at Coachella in ’06. He said he was too old for us when we were on TV the first time around, but he admired us from a distance, and he hoped his child would one day enjoy our crazy antics. He told me, if you ever win a Grammy, I’ll have no complaints. That was sweet of him, but we don’t sing. Our television voices are only tolerated at low decibels, in short bursts of goo-goo euphoria. The Partridge Family on helium, which … hold on a sec, I’m writing that down. Netflix has talked to me offline about a development deal.
Q: No worries. Thanks for your time. I enjoyed.
TW: Are we done? I’m not used to cutting a scene until the narrator’s voice tells me to go home.
Q: It’s time to go home, Tinky Winky.
TW: (disappointed but obedient) Awww.
