In the children's television series, Jamie and the Magic Torch, fictional characters represent a cross section of people in everyday life and the roles they perform according to their unique personalities.
'The Dirty Submarine'
In one episode entitled 'The dirty submarine,' the role played by an old-fashioned submarine dwelling intellectual Mr Boo, is contrasted alongside the talents of the forward thinking and entrepreneurial rabbit magician, Bulli Bundy.
This happens when Bulli Bundy complains to Mr. Boo that he is not embracing modern progress by moving with the times in his failure to understand the usefulness of modern technology, which can be used to save time in completing everyday tasks such as washing.
Therefore, Bulli Bundy seizes the opportunity to put his magician's skills to good use in order to show Mr Boo how useful he will find an automated washing machine to clean his dirty submarine. Bundy explains to him, 'This is the age of progress' to which Mr Boo replies 'The age of Balderdash' to indicate that he likes things done the old fashioned, manual way.
As Mr Boo elaborates further, 'this is the way things always have been done and always shall be done'. But, on this occasion he is willing to give Bundy's washing machine a try, since Bulli seems to have finally invented something which may be of some use to him.
However, as is often the case with Bulli Bundy, Bulli's tricks don't always work out quite as planned and this time results in soap from the new washing machine overflowing and a sea of bubbles stretching the length and breadth of Cuckoo Land. Bulli escapes by jumping back into his hat and vanishing from sight, leaving everyone else to clear up the mess and in doing so he shows Mr. Boo that at least on some occasions, the old fashioned ways are still the best ways.
This is reflective of the attitudes different people aspire to in society and describes the tug of war between old fashioned or out dated ideas and the advances in technology that are seen as modern and superior. However in this case, the rabbit magician is once again put back into his place and found wanting when he demonstrates new inventions and alternate ways of doing things among his friends.
'Hidden Persuasion'
In an episode entitled, 'Hidden persuasion', Bulli Bundy demonstrates how easily people can be manipulated by suggestive thinking to make them behave in a certain way. This time around, he invents a mind control machine which announces to anyone who steps onto it 'Que sera sera, whatever will be will be,' 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor' to which the respondent is hypnotised into a role they proceed to act upon.
In Mr. Boo's case, he now believes himself to be a pirate, Jo-Jo the odd job man thinks he is now a chimpanzee and Officer Gotcha behaves as if he is now a hen. But when Jamie unknowingly steps onto the machine he starts to act like a tea pot, showing that even with a magic torch Jamie is just as susceptible to suggestive thinking and indicates none other than Bulli Bundy as the culprit of this latest endeavour to cause mischief.
This becomes apparent in Bulli's grandiose announcement to Jamie that 'At last, I have you in my power!' and describes plans yet again to overthrow the status quo, by turning situations on their head to change the way other characters perceive themselves to be.
Bulli's power does not last long however, as Officer Gotcha tells him he is completely surrounded and must surrender himself in order to put things back to normal again, to which Bulli sincerely apologises and ends up suffering the fate of his friends by believing himself to be a train.
This happens 'as their memories of what had happened came flooding back to them' to demonstrate the fragility of character roles which, with some careful adjustments can challenge the expectations people have of themselves and open the way up for imaginative thinking and brand new ideas.
Alicia Rudd - Alicia enjoys literature which explores the connections between the romantic and the realistic, the mythicised and the ordinary. In ...
