S Vote For Froglet

On a small blue planet far away, it's polling day for the Clangers! Coinciding with 1974's general election, this episode sees narrator Oliver Postgate trying to persuade the ever-popular woolly creatures of the merits of party politics. But the Clangers aren't taken with the prospect of a society ruled by one group - even though the Soup Dragon stands for election on a 'free soup for all' ticket.

There’s one episode called ‘Vote For Froglet’, which I’ve never seen.

And you won’t! It doesn’t exist [any more]. I was so angry in 1973, the Winter of Discontent, when the Miners Union and the government were locked in mortal combat and the economy of the country was going into the ground, that I honestly thought, having been in Germany at the end of the War and seen what happened when an economy collapsed completely, I really got frightened, I thought the process of government was completely buggered by inter-party squabbling. So I went to the BBC and said, “Can I do a little Clangers film about the election?” It’s basically about the narrator, that’s me, being the interlocutor as well, telling the Clangers that they’ve got to vote, either for the Froglet or for the Soup Dragon. And they refused point blank to have anything to do with it. It was a sort of tiny morality play really. It only lasted three to four minutes and I made it complete in three days.

Suggestions that this no longer exists are completely inaccurate. The British Film Institute has a copy which you can see for free on the web here

http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-vote-for-froglet-1974/

Next episode

S03E01 - The Lost Notes