Trumpton

Trumpton is an animated children’s television series broadcast in 1967, it paints an ‘idyllic’ BBC utopian future where life is nothing but simple, the town awakes every morning to the Trumpton clock which tells the time ‘steadily, sensibly, never too quickly, never too slowly...for Trumpton’, a minor issue arises, which is quickly solved (usually by the fire brigade) and the day ends with the townspeople in the park. As I began to deconstruct the episodes three aspects of the show emerged as

particularly interesting:

The town’s economic structure is based on a simplified Marxist framework.
None of the characters have mouths and can only communicate through the voice of the narrator.
The town has no fixed physical structure; the models for the houses are arranged and re-arranged in the show, the only consistent area being the town square (of which we only ever see a head-on stage-like view).

The first two points establish the town as an organised and somewhat rigid world where the characters have little or no responsibility, depending upon each other’s specialist skills and most frequently the fire brigade. Ultimately, all characters become interdependent upon both the narrator for communication and direction and the town hall clock for order. The third point however contradicts the rigidity of the social structure by implying the town has no permanent geographical structure.

Link to full series of Trumpton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqZvuUbL-eU&list=PLAFCDEA23E7B520F9