Tuesday, 25th January 2005.

"Daddy's taking us to the zoo tomorrow"

It was about quarter past one, and we were faced with two lunchtime TV choices: the excremental 60-Minute Makeover, or the adventures of Barnaby Bear.

Barnaby Bear, I am assured by Sara, was on years ago. Barnaby decided to run away to join the circus, or to run away from the circus, or something like that. He managed to see the world in the process, using a hot air balloon to get around. Barnaby was a naturally inquisitive bear with a tendency to burst into song with alarming regularity. My section manager spoke of it with obvious fondness and a warm sense of nostalgia: it clearly meant a lot to her.

The new Barnaby is an obvious attempt to get children interested in geography by telling them all about different places. Coming across as a sort of Wish You Were Here for seven-year-olds, each episode sees the plucky bear travelling to different places to find out what they are like, while regaling tales of his adventures to a young girl named Kelly. I'm unsure as to whether or not this schools-influenced slant was as much a part of the original, but it's fairly apparent that primary school teachers programme the video and then take the tape into school, supposedly for educational purposes. Or perhaps, as Sara suggested, it's merely an exercise in nostalgia - "because they remember it from their own childhood".

Anything associated with the word 'remake' should be handled with extreme caution (cf. He-Man, Fraggle Rock, the appalling Rainbow Days), but as it turns out, this post-millennial Barnaby is quite a sweet thing - sans balloon and musical talent, but nonetheless chirpy and lively and interested in absolutely everything. While it's likely that Sara would have been extremely disappointed, Emily and I had nothing to compare it to, and thus watched with gay abandon. With backpack slung across hairy shoulders, the bright-eyed puppet ventures forth on his adventures - experiencing the wonders of boat travel, reindeer, the midnight sun, and hide-and-seek with his new-found French friends. Inconsistencies abound - in one episode Barnaby was seen catching cod in the waters around Norway, and speaking of his love for cod and chips with great fondness, while seemingly forgetting that in the previous episode he'd been caught wrinkling his nose in disgust outside a French fish shop. Or perhaps that was just the French.

Bears love fish, of course. But for Barnaby, culinary delight extends beyond the simple piscine, and he happily devours pancakes, crepes, waffles...we were getting hungry by this point, and I'd almost got used to the fact that for a male bear, Barnaby has a distinctly feminine voice. It's a voice you hear rather a lot - anxious to ensure that no one else gets much of a word in edgeways, the cuddly animal asks all manner of questions on his travels, about how pancakes are made and how boats work. When the human being he's talking to has given their answer, Barnaby will turn to the camera and say "Wow! Did you hear that?" - assuming proverbial deafness on the part of his viewers - or try and get in on the action by asking the boat captain / pastry chef / Norwegian fisherman if he can have a go. (No you can't, Barnaby; you don't have any opposable thumbs.) Most amusing of all are his constant reporter-style asides that seem to crop up at least once every minute: "This is Barnaby Bear, fishing for cod", or "This is Barnaby Bear, sitting by the harbour". One can only speculate as to the extent that this creeps into his life off camera, and I could imagine a stream of constant remarks. "This is Barnaby Bear, mauling the hunters / being made into a rug / taking a shit in the woods..."

But something occurred to the two of us while we were watching, as we considered Barnaby's travel companions. It's quite irresponsible to have an infant bear galumphing round the world on his own, no matter how streetwise he is. With this in mind, the creators have added a token parent to the equation, who has the unfortunate job of having to listen to Barnaby repeat everything that's already been said, with his customary "Wow! Did you hear that?". In addition to this, token parent has to carry the video camera, which means that we never see them. And so Barnaby dashes to and fro, not unlike Anneka Rice in Treasure Hunt mode, undermining the comparative tranquillity of a French harbour with the words "Look at that, Dad!".

Once you've managed to suspend disbelief for long enough to get over the logistical impossibility of getting a full-sized bear on a bicycle, or in the back of a car that already contains four people and Barnaby, it makes for a nice image - parent and child on holiday and so forth. That's until you realise that Barnaby has two parents. And get this - only one of them is ever with him - alternating, it seems, between mother and father in each episode. He is always thoughtful enough to remember to send postcards and gifts to the absent parent, but nonetheless there are only ever two bears present on any trip, wherever it is.

This leads us to one of four possibilities. Firstly, that Barnaby is actually part of a single parent family, and that his one parent is - through cross-dressing and voice diction - cleverly playing the role of two parents, in order to maintain the stability that it is believed two parents can provide. Secondly, that Barnaby's other parent must always stay at home in order to look after the cat / dog / baby, or work in some high-flying job. Thirdly, that financial constraints prevent the family from taking holidays all together (a situation that could surely be remedied by simply making fewer trips).

But here's my theory: Barnaby's parents love him dearly and with equal intensity, but have found that over their years their feelings for each other have been reduced to a bitter animosity, if you'll excuse the pun. After an unpleasant divorce, Barnaby finds himself the object of a tug of love between two warring spouses, and this war occurs on the battleground of ferryboats and piazzas and hotels. Given their son's passion for travel, both parents have bought video cameras and kept watch on where the other takes Barnaby on holiday. So the young bear's father, upon having found out that Barnaby has recently visited France with his mother, decides that the best solution is to outdo her - by taking him to Norway. One can only assume that Barnaby's mother subsequently counterattacked by upping the glitz factor and taking him to Venice, which was presumably followed by New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo...

You get the idea. Barnaby Bear is the unwitting pawn in a grudge match between two sniping adults, and all his emotional difficulties are crystallised on camera in the form of an obsession with detail, an obvious need for adult role models, an energy level that borders on the hyperactive, and the desire to bond with his parents through constant dialogue. The subtext is just about subtle enough to slip through unnoticed - until you actually stop and think about it, meaning that young children in the single parent situation may well identify with Barnaby, while never allowing this to overshadow the educational content. And who said it was just about geography?