children’s TV

886. ‘Can We Fix It?’, by Bob the Builder

/ UK #1s blog / 24 Comments

Ah, the classic British Christmas. Pigs in blankets, a half-pissed Granny, more rain than snow outside, and some novelty tripe at number one in the charts…

Can We Fix It?, by Bob the Builder (his 1st of two #1s)

3 weeks, from 17th December 2000 – 7th January 2001

Bob the Builder joins Mr Blobby, Benny Hill, the kids of St. Winifred’s, Little Jimmy Osmond, and several more, in the festive hall of shame. But I will say that, while ‘Can We Fix It?’ is not a song I’m desperate to ever revisit after this; it’s far from the most heinous example of festive excess.

It’s an expansion on the theme to the popular kids’ TV show, with lots of fun musical references. It opens with a version of the escalating ‘Twist and Shout’ intro, also heard in more respectable chart-toppers from David Bowie and the Manic Street Preachers (which means that the year 2000’s first and last #1s are connected in the most unlikely way). Elsewhere there’s a pretty current 2-step garage beat, and lots of record scratches. For a song based on a children’s TV show theme it actually sounds like it could, in a not too distant parallel universe, be a real pop song.

In the video, by which novelties like this often live and die, Bob the Builder puts on various pop star guises, the most memorable of which is Liam Gallagher, complete with a parka and a sneering microphone stance. It also helps that Neil Morrissey, AKA Bob, has a Jarvis Cocker-esque drawl to his voice, sounding almost like a real rock star, but also like he’s very much not taking this seriously at all.

So, like I said, far worse musical crimes have been committed in the name of a Christmas number one. (And that’s before we mention the many God-awful, non-festive novelty chart-toppers…) But quite how this managed to become 2000’s best-selling single – in a year not short of generational classics – and the entire decade’s 10th best seller (!), I’m not quite sure. But hey, at least it kept Westlife’s ‘What Makes a Man’ off top spot, denying them a second Christmas #1 in a row.

Interestingly too, it was the only one of the year 2000’s forty-two chart-toppers that climbed to the top, entering at #2 behind ‘Stan’ the week before. It then peaked in sales in its third week, taking the coveted Christmas prize.

We finally, then, reach the end of 2000: the longest year we’ll ever cover. I published the first number one of this year on 23rd January, real-time, and we’re now well into June. I’m not sure I can sum up a year with so many different number one singles, but I’ve enjoyed more of them than I expected to (while it’s also been a self-indulgent trawl through my fifteenth year on this planet). Back then I was frustrated at the high turnover, feeling that it devalued the charts (which it does), but I’m coming round to the feeling that variety is indeed the spice of life. Meanwhile, at the time of writing in 2025, the current UK #1 has just entered its twelfth week on top…

778. ‘Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh!”, by The Teletubbies

/ UK #1s blog / 8 Comments

From one of the classiest, most understated ‘novelty-in-inverted-commas’ #1s off all time… To the other end of the spectrum…

Teletubbies Say ‘Eh-Oh!’, by The Teletubbies (their 1st and only #1)

2 weeks, from 7th – 21st December 1997

It’s a remix of the theme song to the biggest children’s TV show of the age: the Teletubbies. First aired in March 1997, by August it was reaching an audience of two million. I was one of them, I must admit, though I was a good decade older than the intended audience. I don’t know, there was just something grotesquely fascinating about the four… creatures (what the hell are they?) the grassy dome they lived in, the flowers that talked, the pink pancakes they ate… So huge was the programme that a spin-off single was inevitable, just in time for the Christmas number one race. They didn’t quite make it, but two weeks at number one plus over a million copies sold is pretty impressive.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, as a pop single this is utter garbage. It just about works as a theme-tune (though in these days of streaming you’d happily ‘Skip Intro’) but removed from the context of the show it sounds absolutely bonkers. And not good bonkers. There’s the babyish voices, the rather camp narrator, interludes in which some sheep sing ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ and a matronly old lady sings ‘Mary, Mary Quite Contrary’, and a prolonged bout of diarrhoea (which turns out to be the tubby custard machine, when you watch the video…) All set to a rinky-dink synthesised banjo riff.

At the same time, there’s not much point in getting annoyed about this. It is what it is. Crap, but also something of a time capsule, a glimpse back into those carefree, late-twentieth century days. You could raise an eyebrow at the ridiculous quantities of this record that were sold – well over half a million copies during its two weeks at the top – but then single sales were at their highest ever levels in late-1997, something we can perhaps explore in our next post.

The obvious comparison to make here is to cast your minds back four years, to Mr. Blobby’s similarly bizarre festive release. But Blobby’s song has an anarchic quality to it, a level of chaos and a tongue-in-cheek quality that ‘Teletubbies Say “Eh-Oh!”’ lacks. The only way you could find another level on which to enjoy this song is if you were seriously high.

Finally, I have to raise a hand and admit that I am, in my small way, to blame for this record doing so well. Or at least my younger brother is, as he bought me a cassingle copy for Christmas that year. I wonder how many other copies were bought as a joke, rather than for any love of the song. Teletubbies was only on our screens for four years (in its original run) but its cultural impact was massive. In fact, if you have a spare minute, why not remind yourself of the ‘Tinky Winky Controversy’, and feel a sense of relief that something so narrow-mindedly crazy couldn’t happen in today’s level-headed world…