When a children’s television show reaches a certain level of cultural saturation, the characters are destined to enter the crazy world of the music industry. It happens like clockwork. Think of the Teletubbies hitting the top of the UK singles chart with the 1997 banger Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh!, or Bob the Builder achieving the same feat twice, in 2000, with Can We Fix It?, and a year later with what might count as the definitive version of Lou Bega’s Mambo No 5.
However, it’s hard not to detect the stench of corporate cynicism whenever this happens. You always sense that programme makers know they have a trapped market and that music represents yet another way to extract money from parents. But there is one exception – and that is Hey Duggee, the CBeebies animated series about a lovable dog who runs a club for preschool kids. Not only is Hey Duggee the greatest British children’s TV show of the past 20 years, but it has also worked up an organic relationship to music.
