Ode to OOglies

Saturday morning TV - I just came across this programme called OOglies. I must say, these characters are great, even though they could've been anthropomorphized a bit more lovingly. They're just so familiar: the paraphernalia of my every day life in a more than familiar world, instantly recognizable as an urban 21st century lodging. The show's premise is that, when we're not there, our household objects come to life, usually hellbent on all manner of stunts, and often involving doing pranks on each other. The show's creators have perhaps come up with a winning formula - let's just hope they use it effectively.

I think it was Paul Johnson who marvelled at the capacity children have for seeing - to a child, seeing is believing - an average sock as having a life-force of its own. (Towels, apparently, are especially popular characters among infants.) In this vein, it's great how the show animates the most mundane of household objects with a personality and conatus of their own.

It almost reminds me of what it was like having that ability, exhibited almost exclusively by children, of rendering inanimate things into life, often willingly but sometimes subconsciously. For us adults, well, we have cartoons, video games and drugs. Not quite the same, but let's be thankful for what we've got.

In any case, I'm sure the inhabitants of pastoral England would have also recognized the world of Wind in the Willows - so they'd know what I'm talking about. Disney got it, for his time; and Pixar, while they undoubtedly make the finest children's movies these days (I still haven't gotten my head around how good Toy Story 3), their protagonists tend to summoned from a mid-20th century mind, such as the great Walt.

These OOglies dudes, however, their movie minds are furnished by our turn of the 21st century urban home. If these guys play their cards well, and come up with longer, more intricate storylines, they could become great. I, for one, am already a fan.