We were walking home from nursery this evening when we were overtaken by an older child on a scooter. Alex watched him with evident admiration, then turned to me and said,

“‘Cooter. Po ‘cooter.”

I agreed that it was a scooter, and that Po had a scooter.

“Te’tubbies ‘cooter. Po ‘cooter.”

I agreed that there was a scooter on the Teletubbies, and that it was Po’s scooter.

Then the conversation took a turn I hadn’t expected. Talking of Teletubbies , was the unstated introduction to his next comment: “Nana baw.”

“Yes, I said, LaaLaa has a ball.”

“Tinky bag. Dipsy hat!” finished the boy triumphantly, having listed all the Tubbies’ favourite things.

“What color is Po?” I asked, trying to establish how visual his memories of the Teletubbies are.

He answered promptly, “Red.”

“What color is Tinky Winky?”

“Blue.” We discussed this for a while, and agreed that Tinky Winky was actually purple.

“What color is LaaLaa?” “Yewwow.” “What color is Dipsy?” “Geen.”

This doesn’t necessarily establish the level of detail he remembers, since the colors of the Tubbies are significant and memorisable facts, like their favourite things. So I asked the clincher, something that isn’t generally emphasised in the show.

“What color is LaaLaa’s ball?”

“O’ange.”

He’s clearly got a visual picture of the Teletubbies in his memory banks somewhere. Very observant bunny.