12 October 2025
Tinky-Winky looked over the plains of Teletubbyland. The Sun Baby was setting and smiling down at him with a churlish benevolence, beams refracting off the Tubbytronic Superdome. So good to be home.
Tinky-Winky had been on sabbatical. He believed that he’d learnt a lot in that time, but he’d missed some things terribly that only home had.
The “noo noo” of Noo-Noo as he cleaned. The communal tv time when Po, Laa-laa, Dipsy and himself got tired, switching gaze between each other’s bellies, sometimes giving a bump and a rub to change channels if no one had anything good on.
Most of all, he’d been missing Laa-laa. Laa-laa was yellow, and he really liked yellow.
Tinky Winky took long slow steps down the last rolling hill towards the Tubbytronic Superdome’s snaking driveway, breathing deeply, soaking it all in.
Po ducked her head out of the door and waved.
Tinky Winky waved back and the rest of the Teletubbies rushed out and up the driveway to great him. Tinky Winky rushed for a moment down the hill, urgent to feel the embrace of the other progeny of the Sun Baby. And tripped. Tinky Winky rolled and rolled, falling down the hill. He put his hands over his head triangle and waited to come to a stop.
At the bottom of the hill he stopped rolling, turned to face the sky, and started to laugh.
“hnewhnewnhew” and the other tellytubbies caught up, “hewnhhewnhhewnh” and theylay down around him.
Tinky Winky’s glee from Laa-laa’s yellow felt boundlessand a big smile on his face felt like it’d never leave.
As the telly tubbieslay on the ground, the Sun Baby’s churlish laugh could be heard everywhere, “ahaa aha ahew, wahaha”. Everything was good.
The time had come for communal TV watching, and everybody rubbed their shapes. Tinky Winky’s triangle was quite pointy today, and easily caught a signal of a nuclear family making fairy bread. The other Telly Tubbies rolled around next to him and clapped their hands at such joy.
Laa-laa and Dipsy both turned their TVs on at the same time. Laa-Laa showed a grandmother crocheting a picture of a dairy cow, with a yellow background. Tinky Winky gazed in wonder and awe. Dipsy’s TV was playing a Bob Ross episode, one of the ones shortly after his wife had died of cancer. Tinky Winky could tell because when Bob painted the trees, he didn’t do quick strokes, but did each individual branch, as if he didn’t have elsewhere to go after he finished the painting. Tinky Winky quickly turned slowly back to Laa-Laa’s cow on yellow background. So yellow, very nice. Tinky Winky noticed Po. She was lying on her belly, elbows on the ground and hands on her chin, legs kicking up behind her like she does when enthralled. She used to do that watching the bunnies play Tinky Winky remembered.
Now though, Po was only an arms length away from Dipsy’s belly TV. Po was watching Bob Ross as he painted, eyes wide. She saw Tinky Winky watching, and turned to him, unblinking, a smile on her face. Tinky Winky turned back to the cow and yellow background but this time it looked less yellow. The grandmother had finished the cow and was starting to replace some of the yellow with green grass. Winky turned back to Po and Po was still looking at him with a smile. Tinky smiled back.
The Sun Baby was hardly up when Tinky-Winky awoke. Noo-Noo was sucking at the foot of his bed “Swchhhuuhuchha” and had got a sock stuck in his nose. Funny little guy, Tinky-Winky thought.
“Hahahaha, ahhhh, Tinky-Winky!” Tinky-Winky said, announcing the joy of seeing Noo-Noo, and welcoming a new day. He was covered in a light sweat. He drew off the covers of his bed and stood, looking at the other Tele-Tubbies rolling awake. Tinky-Winky was excited for the work he’d be doing today. The communal TV watching last night had been excellent. Tinky-Winky also knew the Sun Baby had great expectations that his sabbatical would pay dividends. Tinky-Winky knew how hard the Sun Baby had had to push the other Tele-Tubbies, and how hard they’d worked to make enough quality content to cover his absence.
Noo-Noo still had a sock stuck in his nose and had started to wriggle backwards to get it unstuck. It was bumping the furniture, and its eyes were rolling around on the end of its tubular sockets frantically. Tinky-Winky leapt with an “Ahhhh, haha” and caught Noo-Noo, holding it by the body and locking its sucker trunk under his elbow. Running his mitten up the trunk of Noo-Noo, Tinky extracted the sock and coaxed Noo-Noo with a loving belly rub and a pat pat on the forehead between its eye tubes. Noo-Noo, freed, continued to clean the Tubbytronic Superdome, bumping hither and thither, sucking at walls and furniture. What a rascal, Tinky-Winky thought. Our rascal.
Tinky-Winky felt inspired. Today he’d make a video about little rascals. He gave his triangle a flick and it sproinged. He started picking up videos of cats picking at their dog friend’s tail, and of toddlers trying to do the grocery shopping, but buying too many candy bars. He collaged the videos and saved them. He got up from his desk, and walked to the mirror. He watched his tummy and started up his TV, waiting to see that the effect of the video was just right. He felt joy. Perfect. Tinky-Winky, stressing the Winky, exclaimed “Tinky-Winky!”, and walked back to the bedroom. During his time away, he’d learnt that collaboration could be used to make a product more generalisable. He’d worked with all sorts, and now he was excited to work and share with his family, the other Tele-Tubbies. Laa-Laa had gone to her desk in the corner. She liked to seclude herself to concentrate, because she loved play so much she couldn’t get any work done if there was distraction. Noo-Noo was slowly sucking his way towards her. Tinky-Winky bounded over to the vacuum and gave it a little shunt in a different direction, pointing out Dipsy pouring a clear liquid from a beaker into his mouth, spilling half the contents on the floor. Noo-Noo waved his sucker-trunk a wriggle and wave in the air while speeding towards Dipsy’s mess.
Tinky-Winky wiped his brow, moving some sweat from his head fur to his wrist fur.
“Ahhhh” he said.
Po still wasn’t up, he could see. Her little red antennae sticking out of the bed sheets the only clue. Sun Baby shouldn’t be happy about this, Tinky-Winky worried. He walked to the window, seeing the light dance from his fur purple on the wall as he got closer. Leaning against the wall and looking up, ear pressed against the wall, he listened. There was no Sun Baby cry that he could hear. He squinted his gaze through the window at Sun Baby. He couldn’t make out any emotion at all, and had to look away after a moment. Tinky Winky stood up from the window rubbing his fingers against his head. Pausing for a moment, he put his hands on his hips and thought with a “hmmph”.
Surveying the other Tellie-Tubbies, Tinky Winky felt his fingers scratching himself, but on his chin this time. Dipsy had fallen asleep on the floor of the kitchen with a vial of pink Tubby Juice on his chest, Noo-Noo bumping its sucker against his head. Lala was busy working in the corner. Po asleep. Tinky Winky felt the desire to channel creativity, and be near yellow, carry him to Lala. Lala didn’t notice him until he was nearly looking over her shoulder. “E-oooo” she said, turning to him with a big smile. “E-o” Tinky said and rubbed his belly and shook his a head a little. Lala understood and put her head on her hands waiting to see Tinky-Winky’s work for the day.
Tinky Winky felt like a cup of tea. His work was at a comfortable place, so there was no reason he shouldn’t be comfortable too. He walked to the kitchen, belly out and swinging side to side in a content fashion. Walking past the technical closet he heard a muffled metal spinning on rubber. Pausing, Tinky pressed his ear closer to the closet door. “Mmhhmmmmmmmmmn” the spinning went, and then the sound of hydraulics working too hard. Tinky opened the door knowing he’d now no longer feel the right to comfort for a while.
Inside was Noo-Noo, trapped in wires and underneath the heavy gizzmatron. Unexpectedly, the splendicator, a core asset in the Tellietubbies operations, was hanging from the roof. It would normally be sitting on the floor.
Tinky Winky let out an “oooh”, paused for a moment, and said “uhhhh”, and scratched his head.
He removed some of the wires from Noo-Noo, which was difficult because it wouldn’t stop waving its trunk nose sucker in the air in despair, until it was loose enough to wiggle free. He stepped back and Noo-Noo rubbed against his leg and rubbed his belly with its nose.
Tinky Winky walked out of the closet and over to the kitchen to make his cup of tea, Noo-Noo at his heels. As the kettle boiled, he hit the emergency button and pushed his tummy to TellieTransmitter, showing images of Noo-Noo’s destruction. He sat at the bench with his tea, and tipped some off the edge, feeling some small comfort in the “schluschllllllllluuuurpchur” of Noo-Noo’s devouring.
The Sun Baby cackled and a roar filled Tubby Vally. Tinky Winky walked outside to welcome the crew as they arrived. The crew pulled up in a Mac Truck and started unloading the filming equipment and a new gizzmatron, probably to fix the splendicator. Tinky Winky nodded his head to each of the crew as they passed by, “E-o, e-oooo. E-o.”, each of the crew smiling back and dipping their hat to him.
One of the crew pulled herself up in front of Tinky-Winky and addresed him.
“Good day Mr Winky. We heard about the splendicator and brought the gizzmatron. We’re hoping that’ll fix it.”
Tinky-Winky said “ahhh, mhm” and nodded his head.
“Mr Winky, the Sun Baby has made it very clear we’re to find the cause of the splendicator’s status. If you know anything you are to please tell me. My name is Belrie, I’ll be leading the crew for a while at least.”
Tinky-Winky arched his back and neck to look up at the sky. The Sun Baby was directly above and Tinky partially covered his eyes with his arm. It’s face was scrunched into a glare that Tinky-Winky thought likely to be directed at him. Unfortunate.
“Mhm, mhm mhm.” Winky nodded to his head at Belrie until his triangle bobbled, earnestness hopefully accepted.
“What have you prepared for your show today Mr Winky?” Belrie asked.
Tinky-Winky feel to the ground on his back with a thump and started to rub his belly with one hand and scratch his head with the other. His Tubby-Screen flickered with the cats and the dogs and the whatsies and whoosies he’d collated that morning. The corners of Belrie’s mouth tugged down and her eyebrows went up and she nodded slowly. Tinky-Winky took this to be shocked approval.
“Interesting” Belrie said, “Well, I’ll leave you with the crew.”
Tinky-Winky felt hope.
