Flower Pot Men was a British children's programme, produced by BBCtelevision, first transmitted in 1952, and repeated regularly for more than twenty years. A reboot of the show called Bill and Ben was produced in 2001.
Original series
Originally, the programme was part of a BBC children's television series titled Watch with Mother, with a different programme each weekday, most of them involving string puppets. The Flower Pot Men was the story of Bill and Ben, two little men made of flower pots who lived at the bottom of an English suburban garden. The characters were devised by Hilda Brabban. She wrote three original stories of the three characters which she sold to the BBC for one guinea each, She also wrote many more for the BBC but were never sadly aired on tv, The stories were originally broadcast on the radio programme Listen with Mother in 1951. The rights to the stories were later sold to Ben Productions which turned the radio programme into the hugely popular television show. The puppeteers were Audrey Atterbury and Molly Gibson. The voices and other noises were produced by Peter Hawkins, Gladys Whitred and Julia Williams. The narration for all episodes was done by Maria Bird. The plot changed little in each episode. The programme always took place in a garden, behind a potting shed. The third character was Little Weed, of indeterminate species, somewhat resembling a sunflower or dandelion with a smiling face, growing between two large flowerpots. The three were also sometimes visited by a tortoise called Slowcoach, and in one particular episode, the trio meet a slightly mysterious character made out of potatoes called Dan the potato man. While the "man who worked in the garden" was away having his dinner the two Flower Pot Men, Bill and Ben, emerged from the two flowerpots. After a minor adventure a minor mishap occurs; someone is guilty. "Which of these two flower pot men, was it Bill or was it Ben?" the narrator trills, in a quavering soprano; the villain confesses; the gardener's footsteps are heard coming up the garden path; the Flower Pot Men vanish into their pots and the "Goodbye" screen shows. The final punch-line was, "and I think the little house knew something about it! Don't you?" The Flower Pot Men spoke their own, highly inflected version of English, called Oddle Poddle, which was invented by Peter Hawkins. "Ickle-kickle" was an icicle, and Ben would say, "Flobabdob!" At the end of each adventure, they would say bye-bye to each other and to the Little Weed – "Babap, Ickle Weed!" – to which the Weed would inevitably reply with tremulous cadence, "Weeeeeeeeeeed!" This language, like that of the Teletubbies' in 1997, was criticised for hindering children from learning proper English. Hilda Brabban, Based the characters on the antics of her two little brothers, Bill and Ben Wright, at their Castleford, West Yorkshire, home, She was supposed to appear on ITV's talk show Barrymore to talk about the show but was hit with a gagging order from solicitors acting on behalf for former BBC Children’s head and official creator Freda Lingstrom, who held the copyrights they said they would sue her if she did, Miss Lingstrom claimed she invented the TV programme, Hilda was recovering from a stroke at the time, Retired schoolteacher Hilda died in 2002 aged 88. There is a piece about it in the Yorkshire Evening Post, dated Saturday, 13 May 2017, Covering the article about the gagging order.
A tortoise named Slowcoach remains in the series, with few changes to his characteristics. He gets angry at Bill & Ben for ruining his things, but mostly, for messing around.
Another male tortoise called Lightning. He is Slowcoach's brother.
Bill and Ben's voice tones have switched; Bill now has the deep-toned voice, while Ben now has the high toned voice.
Weed is no longer a weed, but an enormous sunflower. Rather than just saying her name, she speaks normal English, playing an "earth mother" role to Bill and Ben and often assisting them.
Comics
The show was the basis for a comic strip of the same name in the children's magazine Robin.
