A psychotic fan drives his car off a bridge into a river: tied up in the boot is his pregnant girlfriend. The strong lyrical content of Eminem's new single Stan is such that radio DJs are being asked to read out a "Warning: explicit material" disclaimer before they play it. The massively popular Eminem was thought to be a shoe-in for the all-important, and highly lucrative, Christmas Number One slot. However, the white gangsta rapper is facing stiff competition - and will probably be beaten to the top spot - by a gormless BBC TV children's presenter called Bob The Builder.
Bob, who is voiced by Men Behaving Badly star, Neil Morrissey, and his single -a DIY anthem called Can We Fix It - is, in every sense, the direct mirror image of Eminem. But such is the pulling power of cartoon pop that the smiling, whistling one is currently outselling the scowling, swearing one. Furthermore, currently at third place in record-buyers' affections is another bunch of anthropomorphic wonders: The Wombles, who are now enjoying a second coming of sorts, thanks to the release of a 34-track double CD retrospective, The Wombles Collection and their timely re-invention as gay icons.
In the past few weeks, the furry ones from Wimbledon have appeared on the cover of the leading gay magazine, Boyz and performed "live" at Europe's biggest gay venue, The Astoria in London. You can't keep the cartoon figures down; just as one bunch has been dispatched to rot away on the shelves of "Everything For A Pound" shops - remember The Smurfs? - a new contingent with an even more sophisticated marketing brief is being primed for over-exposure and a merchandising jackpot.
Wombles, Teletubbies, Tweenies, Muppets . . . they attack like a multi-coloured virus, hitting their target market (pre-school, four-to-six, six-toeight-year-olds) with all the precision of a stealth bomber. Music is critical to their survival - you just haven't made it into the pantheon of cartoon greats until you have your own bespoke three minutes of anodyne sing-along. The more militant tendency types not only gain a stranglehold on the pre-schoolers but also, through use of coded imagery, make inroads into young adults such as The Teletubbies' accidental or not embracing of rave culture.
It began back in 1957 when a dynamic new double act of puppet pigs with plenty of attitude and eerie speeded-up voices debuted on BBC television. Pinky and Perky were the creation of a Czech sculptor-and-painter team (the pig is a symbol of good luck in the Czech Republic) and by wedding their fate to the then-burgeoning popular music scene, they starred in a show that pulled in record audiences for a children's TV programme; it even conquered the US with appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show and, bizarrely, a year-long residency in a casino in Las Vegas.
The show was entirely music-based, from the catchy-as-measles theme song We Belong Together to the central role of a group of puppets called The Beakles. Records show that at the height of their fame in 1963 The Beakles received more fan mail than The Beatles. By prancing around to the pop hits of the day (in a Pan's Peoplesort-of-way), Pinky and Perky also mopped up a lot of adult viewers. It sounds ridiculous now but such was their generation-spanning popularity that in 1966 The BBC banned the programme, charging it with being "too political" - due to a planned edition called "You Too Can Be A Prime Minister" due to be broadcast just before a General Election. Reinstated after a year, Pinky and Perky then defected to Thames Television and finally retired in 1972. Over the last few years, a series of video releases of their BBC shows has proved to be a big seller, thus opening up the possibility of a return to the screens.
Pinky and Perky were The Beatles to The Wombles' Oasis. Taking off just as their porcine progenitors were making their final squeal, The Wombles (Great Uncle Bulgaria, Orinoco, Tobermory, Bungo, Madame Cholet and Adelaide - in case you have forgotten) were firstly a pop group, and secondly the stars of their own TV show. With more hit singles and albums than the standard rock groups of the day, The Wombles understood in those pre-Spice Girls/S Club 7 days that the four-to-nine-year-old dollar was worth chasing, and even that slightly odd adults would also pay to hear their innocuous singles all about life on Wimbledon Common. Who can forget the classic Wimbledon Sunset?
The Wombles also had a civic dimension - back in 1974 they were promoting the then-unheard-of idea of "recycling" litter - which is apt, really, because the Super Furry Ones did quite a bit of recycling of their musical output. The Wombles were unable to weather the 1977 punk storm and broke up acrimoniously. "It was also because of all of these artistic temperaments mingling," says Great Uncle Bulgaria, now out of retirement. "Orinoco was after a more experimental sound and Tobermory wanted to stick to the hit-making. Orinoco also felt he was too big of a star to go out on to the Common and recycle litter. Madame Cholet would try and calm things down and at first that worked but when Orinoco started sleeping with her . . . "
The Wombles lay dormant until two years ago, when their record company, aware of the huge success of The Teletubbies, re-released the seminal Remem- ber You're A Womble which went to number 13 in the charts. After performing for the first time in 15 years for the British Queen Mother's birthday celebrations earlier this year, they decided to re-form. Taking their cue from the modern-day penchant for sampling, they have mixed together their Christmas hit Wombling Merry Christmas with Wizzard's perennial seasonal fave I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday to come up with I Wish It Could Be A Wombling Merry Christmas Everyday. Now going the kitsch/camp route, it can only be a matter of time before they team up with Kylie Minogue for an album of 1970s covers.
It wasn't that much of a conceptual leap from singing pigs to eco-friendly popsters and on to the psychedelic appeal of The Belgian Smurfs, the execrable but mysteriously popular Mr Blobby and the rave generation Teletubbies. All have been chart toppers in their time, and all have understood that cornering the children's market isn't enough. There must also be some residual appeal to adults, either of a "aren't they cute" or the ironically detached variety. Simple nostalgia is also a factor here, as is the sheer innocent enjoyment of, say, last year's big novelty act, The Singing Hamsters, who started off as an Internet cult and soon found themselves on Top Of The Pops bleating their little hearts out as the global musical community urged them on to defeat Cliff Richard's Millennium Prayer.
Cute furry animals can get away with behaviour that in humans seems naff or even a bit sinister. The funniest conversation to be heard on television today is that between Podge and Rodge (like Zig and Zag before them) but would it work as well with two actors? Similarly, if you thought up a TV programme that had its main characters continually dancing, hugging and declaring their love for each other, it would be taken as a programme about ecstasy culture, but make the characters into loveable puppets and it becomes The Teletubbies - or "Acid Trance Hour" as it is known to its clued-in adult followers.
Now a major field of research for child psychologists, sociologists and even linguists, research has shown that the configuration of a "friendly-looking" face on the puppets is all important, as is some grafted-on social concern about the environment or the need for love, peace and tolerance. It would come as no surprise to learn that the entire works of Piaget are pored over, before a new set of cartoon animals is launched.
Just as crucial is the provision of an instantly recognisable theme song, allowing viewer and listener a portal into the utopian lifestyle. Positive, life-affirming and mindlessly joyous, these songs are all crafted to ensure a sense of participation - that you too can run with this gang and have access to a world of day-glo colours and tubby custard. Sucking at a musical nipple maybe, but it does explain why, for the moment at least, Bob the Builder can matter more than Eminem.
