Postman Pat goes postal Listen carefully and you may detect a mutter of discontent grumbling through the blogosphere at the news, sprung last week, that Postman Pat has had a 21st Century makeover. Out goes the loveable local postman, puttering unhurriedly through the Cumbrian countryside. In comes "high-octane", "energetic" Pat, who has been …
being someone who grew up with postman pat im disappointed with the modern twist! but having said that im sure it will appeal to modern yoof, no doubt he will be delivering ASBOs and restraining orders too?
now if only the royal mail could do as well as pat instead of 'loosing' 30% of my play.com orders.
"We will know that the makeover trend has gone too far when Rupert swaps his black and yellow checks for tracksuit and hoody – and trades in his open-top car for a Hummer."
I picture him more in a pink smartcar, with a horn that does La Cucaracha, maybe with a "friend" called Fenton.
I assume that - in keeping with changes in Royal Mail services since Pat's original storylines - he will no longer be aired in the early hours of the morning before the kids leave for school, instead showing in the middle of the day when no-one's bloody well in, leaving a calling card saying you can watch it on iPlayer but only till noon on a Saturday and please be ready with your credit card to pay a fee to cover the fact that the sender didn't pay for sufficient bandwidth.
Still, it's a good job it's not DHL Deliveryman Pat, otherwise you'd sit by your telly waiting for it only to find out they'd lost the original recordings and would have to broadcast some snooker instead.
Plus the alliteration would be all shot to cock.
Now the kids can post live animals, perishable good, massive parcels.
Will it show you travelling 30 miles to pick it up?, beacuse suprise suprise you wern't in at 11 30am Monday?
Or popping round you neighbours house because posty couldn't be bothered to read the address (or can't read English)
Or maybe show the person waiting patiently for 6 weeks, hoping that the cd from Amazon hasn't got "lost".
Or maybe watching someone being stung a £1 for some junk mail becuase it was 1g over weight?
And there was me thinking that the newer Postman Pat series was souped up (shown on CBeebies recently)! Personally I still prefer the much older 'originals' where Pat might just about have a cup of tea before delivering a letter, or help dig Ted Glenn out of a snow drift. Old school.
After viewing the comparison, I conclude both versions are unrealistic. The old version harks back to a Post Office of 50 years ago. The modern version is generic animation with a posties hat on.
A correct, modern version would have Pat doing nothing until about 2 in the afternoon, and then meandering about delivering letters, occasionally to the right place, before 5pm when he dumps the rest in the canal or in the back of his car for tomorrow.
At least I think that's what they must be doing in our area.
What an absolute crock.
Additionally, what rubbish production values. The CGI and bluescreen are ridiculously obvious - watch Pat's mouth if nothing else.
What a travesty of quick cash over quality and new ideas.
Pat (the real one, not this cyber clone) would be rolling in his grave.
Safety goggles - otherwise you may wish to tear your eyes out.
Greendale village post office has closed forceing pensioners to travel miles on non existent rural public transport to get to a post office in the nearest city.
Pat is now part of a low wage expendable work force dependent on technology to substitute job experience and training. Presumably management assigned him to deliver non junk mail in recognition of his long service (in the hope he will injure himself and retire so the position can be filled by lower waged staff).
P.S. Where are all the new icons you promised us? and can we have a where's the Postman Pat angle icon?
Yeah, because kids these days love fast paced explosive action sequences. So it's perfectly fine to butcher these old shows for the sake of the ritalin-popping hyperactive little shits.
Here's an idea. Do another show instead of ruining an old one. There was a time where people actually thought up new ideas rather than making old ones "better".
I was shocked to see that Thomas The Tank Engine now all have CGI'd faces. Looks very creepy IMO.
Bring Back Mysterious Cities Of Gold, Gummi Bears and the like. Kids TV was much better when I was young.
This "makeover" looks like a convinent ploy to flog more Postman Pat merchandise and toys.
Pat's phone rings
Phone: Hello Pat, this is Mr Pratt from the Home Office. We need you help.
Pat: Hello Mr Pratt, Special Delivery services at your service
Phone: We've lost some CD's
Pat: Oh that sounds bad.
Phone: Yes, they contained all the personal information of everybody in Grendale and Pencaster.
Pat: Oh that is bad. I assume you had them send by a secured delivery courier?
Phone: Eh No.
Pat: Well at least by recorded delivery?
Phone: Eh No.
Pat: Well you must of encypted the data?
Phone: Eh... Not as Such.
Pat: You must of password protected them?
Phone: Oh Yes.. We wrote it on the CD.
Pat: Oh. You're Screwed
Pat puts done phone, turns to Jess
Pat: Well Jess, his name might be Pratt but to me he sounds like a complete useless W....
Screen goes blank, cut to old Episode of Bob the Builder.
Let's pitch for more remakes:
1. Bod
Now called "Bo!", our little triangular friend marches along to the sound of MP3s on his mobile phone. Aunt Flo is now aged 73 and undergoing IVF. In episode 1, Farmer Barleymow complains about the Common Agricultural Policy and barricades a footpath. In episode 2, Bo! is tagging tube trains when he is shot in the head by PC Copper. Freddie the Frog and the Animal Band are voted off the X-Factor.
2. Mr Benn
Mr Benn is a spy who is investigating The Shopkeeper in connection with an Al-Quaeda cell. In episode 1, Benn travels to a cave. Here we find out he is not related to Tony Benn, although we do discover that his name is Hillary.
3. Bagpuss
Bagpuss misses out vowels and has many spelling errors. In episode 1 he rides an invisible bike; episode 2 sees him set up a monorail service in Emily's garden. New characters include Basementpuss and Ceilingpuss. In the final episode, Bagpuss is killed by God when someone masturbates. God has taken on the form of hummus.
4. The Magic Roundabout
One of the creatures has a huge Freddie Mercury moustache and is made of a spring, and constantly begs people to go to bed with him. There is a rabbit, which is on drugs.
When I get a package sent and I am not home to collect it rather than take the said package to the main depot which is about 5 miles away he takes it to the local post office which is about 100 yards away.
Of course the local post office only opens between 9am and 5pm and it never occurs to him that perhaps the reason I am not there is because I have a job and taking it there rather than the main depot which opens at 8am and closes at 7pm is a huge fucking inconvenience as I have to get up early on a Saturday (it closes at 12pm on a Saturday, which is early for me) and then have to spend half an hour in a queue just to find out it was a bloody free sample of soap powder *takes deep breath*
I did always wonder though why Postman Pat takes a cat round with him, but its obvious really. Dogs hate cats more than postman so if he ever gets chased by a savage pitbull he can simply throw the cat at it and make a quick escape while Jess is ripped to shreds
The entertainment industry can't help but change a well-loved program to try to improve its appeal to their target demographic groups. For example:
-Kevin Costner as Post-Apocalyptic man Pat.
-Scott Bakula as Mr Benn.
-David Carradine and Sylvester Stalone in a heavily reworked version of Noddy.
Don't even get me started about Captain Pugwash...
Bloody ridiculous. There's no way 'elf & safety would let him deliver any of the stuff he's assigned on his 'missions'. Jess is a serious liability who could easily injure a child on the rounds. PostMAN is a gender-spiked word indicating a phallocentric view of postal delivery which denigrates the contribution made by the service's wimmin workers. Worst of all, Pat and all his colleagues are all white.
In short, I am disgusted that such a bigoted anachronism of a programme ever got commissioned. It has less relevance to the modern world than Love Thy Neighbour.
My posty gets in typically around 9. He used to get in earlier, but given his energy, zeal and manners I'm guessing it is beyond his control now. How is a genuinely nice chap (actually jogs on parts of his round to get it done more quickly - at times).
The local post office, well. I was a regular according to the gentleman who ran it. I visited 2-3 times a year. So I can't blame PO for closing it. I'm just a bit screwed by the lack of car mind you.
Rupert Bear? That private school little twerp? Lets make it more realistic - where's the coke 'tache?
post apocalypse 'Pigeon Street', perhaps the pigeons could be sentient, and have robotic pigeon minions to carry out their will, a bit like battle star galactica, but with pigeons, you know?
Perhaps they could use 'Bertha' as their kind of like robot minion pigeon production unit or something.
Second-class post isn't dealt with until after first-class and any delay is exacerbated with just one delivery a day which comes when it comes. British post is priced between different sizes as well. The posties that I know are generally as nice as Postman Pat but they have no helicopters and I have never seen them leap to move oversize understamped parcels to get to birthday parties.
And I remember post offices: despite being called Royal and not People's Post Offices, they did community things and sold stuff like licences and gave out pensions before the government made people get their pensions through banks. Maybe the bank-crunch will get them put back again?
I like Sarah. I don't think she's really like that white bird on the red coin.
Buy the book or maybe an old cassette.
Does anyone else remember Johnny Morris' reading of Thomas the Tank Engine? Absolutely amazing!
I smell the merchandising and sponsorship too. "Mummy, mummy (or is that "Mommy, mommy"?) I want a postman pat mobile phone/gps/robot cat!"
I can see why they up the pace of the programmes, obviously the children aren't consuming fast enough! Get 'em going! Drink some caffeine or something!
Pirates! They take a good thing and make it take a long walk off a short plank.
<quote>Rupert in a hoodie? Sadly my friend you are behind the times- it has already happened.</quote>
And Paddington, for shame -- http://www.everything2.com/e2node/Raddington%20Bear (some five years prior. At least this wasn't followed up on and put on screen*).
* AFAIK ... joke notwithstanding [see URL], maybe Michael Bond did put his foot down to some extent.
>> Of course the local post office only opens between 9am and 5pm
9am to 5pm? Try 8.30am to 2pm - that's the opening hours of my *Main Depot* (at least the collections desk). This is compounded by the fact there is only ever one person on the desk and that it takes them half an hour to find anything (if they even can) as there appears to be no system in place.
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