46: Doctor Snuggles

Doctor Snuggles, traveling gnome-style.

I remember stumbling across "Doctor Snuggles" in the early-morning hours as a child, and not understanding what the hell that show was about, and being more than a little unnerved by the trippy nature of it (politely termed "lightly psychedelic" in the Wikipedia writeup). This was before I became aware of the gnomish agenda, and the notion of a man with a talking pocketwatch, traveling around by means of a talking pogo stick was taken at face value, without larger context. It's curious to read the wikipedia entry above, as it indicates that the show had British, German, and Dutch producers -- thus, the show managed to braid together three potent cultural strains of gnomedom into one Gordian Knot.

Doctor Snuggles is a bit of a gnomish Quisling, in that he is that rarest of creatures: a beardless gnome. He was clearly operating incognito. He's also fairly stoic and reserved, isn't whacky or madcap, but this may well be part of his cover, since he is clearly either tripping on a lot of low-grade acid and/or is just attempting to propagandize gnomish lifestyles for unwary audiences. He's an inventor, naturally.

Go ahead, watch an episode. The theme song has stayed with me for, what, over 30 years? The tinker/inventor sounds at the beginning are also terribly gnomish. And a wooden rocket ship? WTF? Gnomes.