Flower Pot Men

Premise

Flower Pot Men features the story of Bill and Ben, two men made of terracotta flower pots who live at the bottom of an English garden. A third character, Little Weed, of indeterminate species resembling either a sunflower or a dandelion with a smiling face, is shown growing between two large flowerpots. The three are also sometimes visited by a tortoise called Slowcoach and, in one particular episode, the trio meet a faintly mysterious character made out of potatoes, Dan the Potato Man.

Typically, while the "man who worked in the garden" would be away having his dinner, the two flower pot men, Bill and Ben, would emerge from their pots. After a minor adventure, a slight mishap would occur, for which someone would then take the blame: "Which of these two flowerpot men, was it Bill or was it Ben?" the narrator would trill in a quavering soprano; the culprit would then confess, before the gardener's footsteps would be heard coming up the garden path; the flower pot men then would vanish into their pots and the "Goodbye" screen would appear. The final punch-line was, "..and I think the little house knew something about it; don't you?".

Production

According to her adopted daughter Alison Gassier, Freda Lingstrom got the idea for the show after spending time in her woodshed with a flowerpot. She assembled the production crew, which consisted mainly of those who had worked on her previous show Andy Pandy: her associate Maria Bird, who wrote the songs and music and narrated, puppeteers Audrey Atterbury and Molly Gibson, and singers Gladys Whitred and Julia Whitaker (nee Williams). The only new member was Peter Hawkins, who voiced both Bill and Ben, inventing their gibberish language, named Oddle-Poddle. He based the language on select words such as "Slogalog" (Slowcoach the Tortoise) and "Haddap" (Hello).{{cite web

The puppets were made to look as if they were made from flowerpots. Cupcake holders were used for their hats, which sometimes caught onto their strings. Peter particularly praised Audrey's puppetry for being very precise.{{cite web

Episodes

UK VHS Releases

Controversy

Confusion with other characters

Retired headteacher Hilda Brabban created an unrelated set of characters also named Bill and Ben. These have been confused with the Flower Pot Men, including in the initial versions of two obituaries of Brabban, published in The Independent and BBC's in-house magazine Ariel respectively. The confusion also affected the BBC panel show QI, where host Stephen Fry in the 2004 episode Bills mistakenly claimed Brabban had named the Flower Pot Men characters after her younger brothers. All three sources later corrected their statements. Brabban sold three stories about a Bill and Ben to the BBC in the 1950s; but other than their names, they bore no resemblance to the Flower Pot Men. Brabban's stories were broadcast on the radio programme Listen with Mother in 1951; the Bill and Ben of the Flower Pot Men were first seen on the television programme Watch with Mother in 1952. Both programmes were produced by Freda Lingstrom. During her later life Brabban suffered a stroke and later maintained she did invent the characters used in the BBC series; this prompted lawyers, acting on behalf of the estate of the show's creator, Freda Lingstrom, to threaten Brabban with litigation if she appeared on television to propagate this claim.

Comics

The show was the basis for a comic strip of the same name in the children's magazine Robin.

Legacy

The short lived one-hit wonder group, The Flower Pot Men, known for their 1967 song "Let's Go to San Francisco", named the group after the show, although it caused controversies with people suggesting it may have had something to do with marijuana. Bill and Ben themselves may have inspired the names of the twin characters Bill and Ben from Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends.

Notes

References

References

1. "The Flowerpot Men (1952)". BFI.
2. McGown, Alistair. (2003–2014). "BFI Flowerpot Men, The (1952-54)". BFI Screenonline.
3. "The 1950s".
4. (18 December 1952). "''The Flower Pot Men'' - BBC Programme Index".
5. "[[Norman Wisdom]]".
6. (15 January 1953). "''The Flowerpot Men'' - BBC Programme Index".
7. "[[List of QI episodes (D series)".
8. "QI Series B, Episode 10 - Bills".
9. (5 February 2003). "Hilda Brabban obituary - a clarification".
10. (26 March 2021). "The Original Flower Pot Men".
11. Morrison, James. (20 October 2002). "Flobbadob! Storm in a flowerpot over who sowed the seeds for Bill and Ben".
12. (13 May 2017). "Nostalgia: Flobberdobberdobberdobber... What a fight over Bill and Ben".
13. "Bill and Ben, the Flowerpot Men". comicvine.com.