Beeb gets grief for Humpty Dumpty rewrite

MP decries happy ending to wall-fall shocker

By Lester Haines • Get more from this author

Posted in Entertainment, 19th October 2009 09:33 GMT

Free whitepaper – Dell/EMC CX4 and Dell PowerEdge blades

The BBC is taking a bit of stick for rewriting Humpty Dumpty to protect wide-eyed kiddies from the terrible realisation that the combined ingenuity of all the king's horses and all the king's men proved insufficient to reassemble the poor chap.

According to the Sun, CBeebies show Something Special featured a sanitised version ending: "All the king's horses and all the king's men made Humpty Dumpty happy again."

The outrage was spotted by Glasgow South Labour MP Tom Harris, who was watching the programme with his two young sons. He thundered: "For goodness sake. Kids should be exposed to real life a bit, not cosseted away [sic].

"We need to stop this moronic activity. Let them see colourful and violent* cartoons, and let them be children."

Harris also noted that Something Special decided it'd be better if Little Miss Muffet made friends with the spider, rather then legging it.

The Sun wheeled out the chairman of The Campaign for Real Education, Nick Seaton, who offered: "Nursery rhymes are a gentle way to ease children into the real world. Children are being told everything is rosy and aren't being raised to confront problems."

A Beeb spokeswoman defended: "The small change to Humpty Dumpty was for no other reason than being creative and entertaining." ®

Bootnote

*In fact, Something Special does indeed offer kids "colourful and violent" content. In 2007, its presenter Mr Tumble managed to render the sign language greeting “I’m happy to see you” as “I’m f**cking you”, much to the delight of the Sun.

The programme's website currently features the tale of Hansel and Gretel, which has evidently not been Humptied. The site warns: "This is the traditional version of the Hansel and Gretel fairy story, showing an image of the witch being put in the oven. Concerned Grown-ups may like to preview the story first."

Free whitepaper – Migrating to the new Dell Management Console