Latest news with #Teletubby
Irish Independent
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
World-famous Hamleys shop names top 10 toys of all time
Lego, Barbie and Rubik's Cube top the list, according to the retailer ©Press Association Lego classic bricks, the Barbie doll and the Rubik's Cube have been named among the top toys of all time by retailer Hamleys. The boardgame Monopoly, the Tamagotchi virtual pet, which Hamleys described as a 'symbol of 90s tech toy obsession', and the Action Man doll also make the top 10, as does the Teletubby doll, the Furby, the Frozen singing doll and Nintendo Game Boy.
Winnipeg Free Press
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
‘Girl on Girl' explores how Internet pornography's rise helped normalize misogyny
Girl on Girl, the treatise on the seismic shift in pop culture of the late 1990s/early 2000s by Atlantic staff writer Sophie Gilbert, opens with one of the most enduring images of that time: the 1999 Rolling Stone cover featuring Britney Spears. The then-teenage pop star is reclining on magenta satin sheets, clutching a Teletubby doll — the purple one, another lightning rod for controversy — her shirt open, revealing a satin push-up bra in bad-girl black. In many ways, that image was a cultural bellwether of all that was to come: the objectification, infantilization and hyper-sexualization of girls and women by popular culture. With Girl On Girl, Gilbert, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, offers a clear-eyed survey of an era when feminist 'Riot Grrrl' women were replaced by girls — pliable, exploitable, profitable girls. The book is chronological, divided up into sections with 'girl' in the title — Girl Power, Girl Fight, Gossip Girls, Girl Boss — to examine, in dizzying, harrowing detail, all the ways in which the late '90s and the early aughts were no friend to women. From teen sex comedies such as American Pie casting women as the gatekeepers of sex to reality TV's meat-market appraisal of women, Gilbert takes a sharp critic's view of the culture of the era, and how it normalized misogyny. She treats her subject matter seriously because it is serious. Sometimes people dismiss pop culture as frivolous when it actually has the power to shape social mores. We are what we eat, the adage goes; it follows that we are what we consume in other spheres as well. As Gilbert discovered through her research, all roads lead back to the advent of internet pornography. The aesthetics of porn had a far-reaching — and sometimes insidious — influence, including into IRL bedrooms. The chapter Final Girl, which explores the rise of violence in porn and other media, is particularly terrifying in its lurid detail. (If you're looking for a feel-good read, this is not it.) A lot is packed into these chapters — each individual cultural example on its own could likely merit a full-length book treatment — but taken all together, the effect is like looking at a completed jigsaw puzzle; we knew each individual piece was bad, but the whole is devastating. Gilbert mentions that publishers wanted her to insert more of herself into the book; save for a few instances, she mostly does not. Girl On Girl could have benefitted from more of a personal touch; the writing sometimes feels distant and anthropological. If the whole point is to understand how this culture made women feel, and the lasting scars it left, it could have been helpful to have a millennial guide in Gilbert, who was 16 in 1999. Wednesdays Columnist Jen Zoratti looks at what's next in arts, life and pop culture. Lately, culture's been feeling very Y2K. The alarming rise of Skinnytok — the pro-anorexia, 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels' messaging of the early aughts repackaged for the TikTok generation — and Ozempic bringing back impossible Hollywood body standards. Girlbosses, Girl Dinners, Tradwives, Instagram Face and cosmetic surgery, skin-care obsessed Sephora tweens. A reality TV star in the White House. Gilbert draws a straight line between then and now, but manages to end on a hopeful note. We have the language now, she notes. We can name the misogyny, the objectification. We can understand, clearly, the harms of the culture we consumed back then — the culture we might even find ourselves nostalgic for now. To wit: on Instagram there was a trend of millennial women making videos critically addressing and reflecting on the era at the heart of Girl On Girl and how it made them who they are. The soundtrack? Billie Eilish's aching song What Was I Made For?, from Greta Gerwig's Barbie. Jen Zoratti is a Free Press columnist and a millennial who was 14 in 1999. Jen ZorattiColumnist Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen. Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Entering the Space-out competition: I tried to be the best at doing nothing – but my opponent had a secret weapon
I am someone who finds it extraordinarily difficult to sit still or be quiet. On one family road trip, my mother challenged me not to speak for 20 minutes, with a prize of $100 for my efforts. I lasted approximately 30 seconds. My ADHD diagnosis at 32 was the natural progression of my life. The Space-out competition, held in Melbourne on Monday, was the ultimate test of whether I could fight my own nature and embrace nothingness. Created by South Korean artist Woopsyang as a response to her own experience of burnout, the competition has been running for more than a decade around the world with a simple proposition: a mini-city of competitors, all dressed as their jobs, sit in a public space doing absolutely nothing for 90 minutes. Related: 'A diagnosis can sweep away guilt': the delicate art of treating ADHD Laughing, chatting, using technology or falling asleep results in disqualification – 'lifeguards' patrol around monitoring everyone's activity, or lack thereof. A large yellow card is a warning, and a red one is a disqualification. Participants can raise smaller coloured cards to ask for warmth, water, a massage or to exit the competition. Every 15 minutes 'doctors' measure participants' heart rates. The watching crowds vote on their favourite competitor, which, when combined with the heart rate measurement, determines the overall I am a self-respecting journalist, my outfit is a fedora adorned with a card reading PRESS. My competitors include an actual dog, an elderly man (who turns out to be the oldest-ever participant in the competition), a woman sitting in a tub with a functioning fountain on her head, a Teletubby, a chef (with a Ratatouille toy on their head) and a bunch of young kids. We're all invited to write our reasons for participating on a board the public can read and vote on. The answers range from earnest to silly. 'To calm my nervous system,' one reads. 'I'm extremely unemployed,' reads another. Woopsyang comes to the stage, wearing the traditional male Korean ceremonial garb, including the wide-brimmed gat, and makes a speech via an unfurling ribbon. 'Sometimes doing nothing can be the most powerful and valuable act,' it reads. We participate in stretching and aerobic exercises before sitting on our mats. The timer begins. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see my partner taking photos of me, but I try to ignore him and focus on a fixed point in front of me. I try not to move. I'm desperate to get up, to shake my limbs, but I keep sitting. My mind is not blank, but I try to engage the meditation techniques my Buddhist mother taught me. I can hear comedian commentators Harry Jun and Oliver Coleman telling the crowd that the young boys left the competition 20 minutes in, that warnings have already begun to be handed out, that someone's ice-cream has melted. I want to look around, but I can't. I can hear the public around me. I feel like an animal in a zoo. The only marker of time is when a doctor approaches to measure my heart rate; I'm surprised to find the 15-minute increments feel shorter every time. Each time a doctor comes over, I know I'm closer to my goal – and my heart rate is steadily decreasing. I'm in the zone, baby. I raise my blue card once to ask for water, and my yellow one once for warmth, which turns out to be a small sock with a heat bag in it (not useful!). But after a while, doing nothing becomes quite pleasant. My mind is still not quite blank but I enter a liminal state. The sound of the crowd has become white noise. When the final whistle is blown, I'm shocked that it has been an hour and a half. I could happily have sat and done nothing for much longer. Alas, I do not place – the fountain lady, who admits that the trickling water in her costume was designed to make her fellow contestants need to pee, is declared the winner. I find out later via Instagram that she has been working on the costume for months, unlike mine, which I made in about two minutes. She deserves the win. But winning is kind of beside the point of the Space-out competition. I proudly tell my family that I managed to sit still and be quiet for 90 minutes straight in public. I won't get $100 from my mum for this but I finally won the bet, after all.
NZ Herald
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Herald morning quiz: June 1
What was the name of the green Teletubby? Photo / Nickelodeon Can you score 10 out of 10? Test your general knowledge with the Herald 's morning quiz. Share your score with friends, family and colleagues, and find out who has the sharpest mind. Be sure to check back on for today's afternoon quiz.
Daily Mirror
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Where the actors behind Teletubbies are now from lesbian sex scene to alcoholism
Underneath the giant costumes of the characters that grew up with millennial children were real-life people, who have been involved in scandal and tragedy in life after the hit show We all remember the four giant-sized, alien-like creatures running around in our screens causing mischief when we were little. The Teletubbies could be considered one of the most iconic children's TV shows in British history since they debuted in 1997. Their gibberish language and the differently shaped antennas coming out of their heads make them easily memorable. The four Teletubbies were Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa-Laa and Po, and would be watched over by the Sun Baby and the Voice Trumpets. They all spread joy and laughter on the show to anyone who watched. However, they were quite renowned for mating so much so that they had to make a scene less X-rated, where one episode was banned. The show originally ran from 1997 until 2001 on the BBC before being revived from 2015 to 2018. And in November 2022, Netflix launched a big comeback. But what happened to the original faces behind the masks? Tinky Winky Tinky Winky was the largest and oldest Teletubby was played by three actors, Dave Thompson, Simon Shelton, and Jeremiah Krage. Dave, who was the first to play the purple giant left the series after viewers started to question Tinky Winky's sexuality. Hardline US evangelist Jerry Falwell once attacked the show, saying: "Tinky Winky is purple, the gay pride colour, and his antenna is shaped like a triangle: the gay pride symbol." The official line was that he walked due to 'creative differences', but it was later reported that the show's production company felt the actor had misinterpreted the role by "implying" Tinky Winky was gay. 'I am proud of my work for them. I was always the one to test out the limitations of the costume. I was the first to fall off my chair and roll over. I took all the risks," Dave said regarding his departure. Since leaving the show Dave went into the business of standup comedy and performed with the Naked Balloon dance troupe in 2014. After Dave's departure, Simon, who was a ballet dancer and choreographer, took over the role as the Teletubbies grew in popularity in the UK and US. 'We used to receive a lot of fan mail from kind and parents, I suppose we were a bit like The Beatles or Take That of children's television,' explained Simon. Tinky Winky's orientation has also been a question Simon has had to answer. "People always ask me if Tinky Winky is gay," he said. "But the character is supposed to be a three-year-old so the question is really quite silly." Tragically, Simon was found dead from hypothermia in Liverpool in January 2018 at the age of just 52-years-old. He had a high concentration of booze in his system and had known to have had problems with alcohol. Dipsy Dipsy may have been considered the coolest of the Teletubbies, played by stand-up comedian John Simmit. Explaining how he influenced the character, John explained: "Dipsy would say, 'Papa Come Papa Come To Po', which was actually my take on a classic reggae rhythm track called The Whip. "And I'd slip in Jamaican dance moves, a Bogle there and a Tatty here. People spotted my little wink to my culture and I'm proud of that." John never hid from the truth of how hard and sweaty it was to work in the big suit they had to wear. "We had to wear really ugly underwear like those old Western long johns, which was essentially a onesie, but it was so it could absorb the sweat," he said. "When we were out of costume, you'd have to turn your face the other way and speak to us at a distance because we were reeking and so sweaty you could wring us out. Huge props to our dressers for putting up with us!" Once the show came to an end after four years, John went back to being a comic and toured the country. John once said he has never revealed on stage that he was the man behind the Dipsy costume, but he does tweet about his time on the show and replies to fans' messages. "The stand-up circuit is pretty close-knit so people got to know that I was Dipsy - but I never mentioned it on stage,' he previously said. Laa Laa The third Teletubby is Laa Laa with the curly antenna, the sweetest and most supportive of the gang, and was played by trained dancer Nikky Smedley. The 53-year-old got the role of Laa Laa after replying to newspaper ads for an actor to star in a new children's TV show and stayed for the original four-year run. But it wasn't all fun and games as Nikky explained that the hot and heavy suits were a nightmare as they filmed for 11 hours at a time. Once Teletubbies came to the end of its first run in 2001, Nikky stayed working for Ragdoll Productions on other shows. As well as Boohbah, Nikky has been involved in choreographing CBeebies favourite In The Night Garden - another popular kid's show featuring strange, colourful characters. Po The baby of the family was little Po, who was by far the cutest and smallest of the lot. Softly-spoken Po could be seen blowing bubbles using her circular-shaped antenna and hurting around Tubbyland on her scooter. Actress and presenter Pui Fan Lee took on the role shortly after leaving drama school - and in one incredible picture was seen lying down fast asleep with the body of her Po costume still on. After the show ended, Pui raised a few eyebrows by taking part in lesbian sex scenes during Channel 4 show Metrosexuality. "Yes, I was Po, but I am an actress, and the role looked interesting. I didn't take the lesbian role to be deliberately controversial," explained the actress. Pui would later return to children's TV and was one of the first ever presenters on the CBeebies channel along with Chris Jarvis, who she also hosts Show Me Show Me with. The actress also had a minor role in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and made a guest appearance in EastEnders in 2019. The Sun Baby The adorable Sun Baby popped up at the beginning of every episode to wake the Teletubbies up and as a signal for the end of the day. The original Sun Baby was played by Jess Smith, between 1997 and 2001, and is now in her 20s and was expecting her first child. The child star also previously revealed that she was actually cast in the role when she was being weighed in hospital. At the time, producers let the baby Jess sit in front of a mirror and a camera while she watched her dad play with toys. Luckily, the sweet moment made baby Jess laugh so much that she was instantly cast in the coveted BBC role. Speaking to BBC South East in 2017 about landing the role, Jess explained: "I was being weighed at the hospital. "My mum took me and it just happened to be the same time that the producer of the old series had come in and wanted the hospital to get in contact with them if they'd seen any smiley babies. "It was just a case of sitting in front of a mirror and a camera and my dad playing with toys and race cars and that sort of thing to try and get me to laugh at the camera." When the show was revived in 2015, a new baby called Berry took over the role and was even seen being cuddled by Jess in a cute snap.
