This is the story of the most British television program ever to exist. It’s got everything I associate with Britain: children in weird little Victorian outfits, creepy dolls, the queen of England, and sadness. I’ve never been to Britain, but I’m sure these are the touchmarks. It’s a whimsical children’s story about how wishing is bad that ends with one of the main characters burning to death. It’s Tottie: The Story Of A Dolls’ House.
I’ve never liked the children’s stories where toys come alive whenever children aren’t playing with them and have their own rich internal lives. Not all children play with their toys the same way. Some of us hung out with our Grandpa a lot as a little girl, watched a lot of westerns, and liked to play hang the cattle rustlers with Barbies. Toys shouldn’t be alive. It’s immediately a creepy concept, is the point.
Tottie: The Story Of A Doll’s House stars a family of four dolls owned by two girls named Emily and Charlotte. Emily and Charlotte are only shown in still photographs, and their thoughts and actions are spelled out by a narrator. The dolls all have their own voices; horrific noises recorded directly into a tin can. The narrator is also the director, Oliver Postgate, who directed many classic British children’s shows such as Bagpuss, Pingwings, and Pogel’s Wood, not a single one of which I made up, not even Bagpuss!
Is The Complete Bagpuss something you order for your best friend’s bachelor party? Or is it what I would call a woman who dinged my car in a parking lot and drove off without leaving a note? I.E., “What a total and Complete Bagpuss.” Sorry, I’m getting way off-topic. Let me introduce you to the Complete Bagpusses that inhabit the world of Tottie: The Story Of A Dolls’ House.
Mr. Plantaganet has PTSD from previously being owned by boys who drew a dumb little mustache on him and let a dog chew his foot off. Tottie is the lead of the show, a 100-year-old farthing doll that used to belong to Charlotte and Emily’s grandma. Mrs. Plantaganet, AKA Bridie, is at first a whimsical and later tragic character straight from a Dickens novel. Apple is a kid who can’t be posed easily, so he sort of rolls around most of the time, and Darner is the family… we’ll call it a “dog.” They live in a shoebox and make the vital mistake of wishing for a real dollhouse. They’ll soon learn the lesson that nothing good should ever happen to you, specifically British children.
Tottie used to live in a beautiful dollhouse that belonged to Charlotte and Emily’s grandma, and it was a perfect place to live, except that she had to share it with another doll named Marchpane, who was, please excuse my language, a Complete Bagpuss. Is this mention of Marchpane foreshadowing? Who knows. She describes the dollhouse to the other dolls, and they all wish to live in it; unfortunately, one day, the dollhouse is sent to Emily and Charlotte, but time has not been kind to it. It’s more of a doll trap house at this point. Or what a Chicago real estate agent would call a “quaint fixer-upper.”
So now the dolls have to wish for the house to be less yucky, which they do, and of course, the children comply with the doll’s wishes, fixing everything up and making it much nicer. For a brief time, everyone is happy. Tottie gives everyone a tour of the fixed-up house and points out things like a pink room that Bridie falls in love with and a lamp with a real birthday candle in it that they must never go near, especially Birdie because she’s made of celluloid and will burn up in an instant. Could this be foreshadowing? Haha, we’ll see!
So now the house is nice, except for the sofa and chairs, which were too wrecked for the girls to fix, so the dolls have to wish for them to be nicer as well. However, the girls don’t have enough money for new furniture. That’s why all of their dolls look so crappy. So they decided to lend Tottie out to an antique doll exhibit for a dollar, which will give them enough money to upgrade the furniture. Guess who Tottie runs into at the doll museum: that Complete Bagpuss, Marchpane.
Sorry, none of those dolls are Marchpane. I just thought you might like to see some of the other dolls at the doll museum upon which the camera lingers. This is the beautiful and vain antique doll Marchpane. She’s marginally less terrifying:
Marchpane is pretty intense. She hates children and being played with. She just wants to be looked at and admired. She tells all of the other dolls that Tottie ain’t shit because she’s made out of wood and can’t even open and close her eyes like Marchpane. When Tottie talks about the dollhouse, Marchpane tells everyone that it’s actually her dollhouse, not Tottie’s. Anyway, Queen Elizabeth visits the exhibit and wants to buy Tottie, which shuts Marchpane up real fast, and luckily, Tottie isn’t for sale.
Eventually, Tottie returns home to the dollhouse. They get new furniture, and everything is fine. Tottie has learned her lesson that wishing brings mean little dolls into her life, and she doesn’t wish anymore, haha, you fools. Of course, she makes more cursed wishes. It’s almost Christmas, and she wishes for a parasol for Birdie, a marble for Apple, and a job for Mr. Plantaganet so he can go to work every day like Charlotte and Emily’s father. She actually dreams of labor.
These girls once again give the dolls everything they wish for, including making a tiny post office for Mr. Plantaganet to work at, but in return, the universe sends horrible consequences. Once again, the form of Marchpane, who is gifted to the girls for Christmas. Marchpane is immediately like, “You’re all my servants now.” Mr. Plantaganet is the butler, Bridie is the housekeeper, Tottie is the cook, and Apple is her son. They all object, but Marchpane says, “I can wish that too. You’ll see.”
The girls redesign the whole house by Marchpane’s request, giving her the pink room Birdie loved and rearranging the family to be Marchpane’s servants. This drives Birdie insane. She can’t remember that Apple isn’t her son anymore and that the pink room isn’t hers. She keeps trying to go into the living room with Marchpane and Apple, where she isn’t allowed. Then, one day, Charlotte and Emily decide to light that dangerous birthday candle lamp, and one of the main characters of this beloved children’s show is completely immolated.
Imagine being the director of this and telling the child actors, “Ok, now your doll that was driven to madness by your cruel playtime has just burned to death. Perfect! That’s the perfect face! Don’t stop making that face! Look at the smoking clothing crater that was once your beloved doll!”
The girls suddenly decide they don’t like Marchpane after seeing her calmly watch Birdie burn to death. They donate her back to the museum where she was previously on display. The narrator points out that this is what Marchpane wanted all along, so she gets a happily ever after. The end! Sorry, I think a particularly strong doll made a wish for me to end my article with Marchpane’s happily ever after. Marchpane is still out there, and I hate that. She makes Annabelle look like Malibu Barbie.
Back at the dollhouse, life goes on. Mr. Plantaganet and Tottie have a conversation about Birdie to wrap things up. “Wasn’t she beautiful in the flame, like a firework?” Mr. Plantaganet says. WEIRD! Don’t tell children burning to death is cool. They’ll do anything to look cool. Mr Plantaganet is going to start a TikTok challenge and end millions of creepy little British children’s lives!
The dolls all decide that shit happens, and Birdie would want them to be happy, so they’re all just going to be happy in their dollhouse now that they have everything they want. So, to recap, Birdie, a perfectly nice little character, burns to death (but looks good doing it), and her family immediately moves on. Marchpane, I hate to talk about women this way, but a complete and utter Bagpuss, lives her dream life after doing nothing but bringing misery to all around her. So the lesson is to be mean and force everyone around you into servitude, and your life will rule. Very British!
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4 replies on “Learning Day: Tottie: The Story Of A Dolls House 🌭”
I was going to argue with this and say the most British TV program ever was Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings. But nope, that’s a distant second.
As a Brit, I should say that I think it’s a Gumboot. However, we have no excuse for Mr. Rumbletum, or Bagpuss.
I sometimes get done reading these articles about TV shows of yesteryear and wonder if the directors of these extremely cursed productions ever faced any pushback for their creations. I just can’t bring myself to believe that Oliver Postgate presented this to whoever was responsible for getting it put on television and didn’t get told at least once, “Should we call the police, or the men in white coats to come get you?”
“Complete Bagpuss” is now in my vernacular and will hopefully be how I refer to my grandchildren after I’ve gone senile. Court documents will note it was one of the reasons they threw me in the lake, weighed down in a lead vest (like bagpusses they will be)