Why I love Tove (A They Live In Your TV Special)

Good lord, but I was out of ideas for a time there.  Ghost Transmissions nearly ground to a halt amid a huge house move and Christmas and so on.  The new GhostMansion is within sight of a huge transmitter tower, so I'm inviting the Ashtar Command round for tea later this week.  Apparently, I've been seeing him as lights in the sky for a while now.  My god, was that  Ghost Transmissions in-joke for longstanding marks readers?

No matter.  Inspired by the seasons, I turn to something I'd nearly forgotten. 

Two things about winter.  If it's damp and dreary, well, hibernating through is the only answer.  But if it should turn a little snowy...well, I love a blizzard, me.  Indirectly, this leads me into a world where ice, snow, sunshine, summer and sleeping for several months all combine into one fuzzy-felt animated semi-paradise, albeit one with crepe-paper serpents.  Let's take a look at the time the Poles met Tove Jansson.

Unfamiliar with the name?  Tove (one of my dearest wishes is that I'd been on first name terms) was a legendary (and I use the word precisely) Finnish artist and writer.  She had a pretty prolific output, but her most famous creations were, of course, the Moomins.

Ahhhhhh, go some of you.  Little cute hippo things.  Japanese cartoons with the odd scary witch monster in.  Cute.  Kawaii. 

WRONG.

I'm a touch obsessive on this.  Before I do all the TV stuff, quick overview of the real Moomin story; the books begin as gently spooky tales of funny monsters having adventures and looking out for their friends.  They're about family and love and summer days.  With monsters, as I said, but nice ones.  Except that even in these early stories, there are hints of a bigger picture; Tove describes a cutesy spring day in the Moominvalley, before casually mentioning that 'the spirits that haunted the trees were combing their long hair.'

And of course, there was a real, full on monster in the story and one that has given small ones the screaming horrors for years.  But we'll come to HER shortly. 

Time went on; Tove wrote more Moomin stories.  The characters grew more defined, the jokes and non-sequiturs got funnier.  The art was sublime.  Then...then came one of the greatest books ever written.  No hyperbole.  Simple as that.  Moominland Midwinter.  What's so good about it?  Well, it's a life affirming, philosophical (and intensely pagan, in a sense) tract that touches on life, death, rebirth, outsider status and sexuality.  And it's about the Moomins.  Our hero, Moomintroll accidentally awakens in January.  Alone and trapped by snowdrifts, he meets the mysterious Too-Ticky and a cute squirrel.  Ah, Too-Ticky!  I may be overstating the point about sexuality in this book, but Too-Ticky is a loner, accustomed to survival, who speaks of the status of the people who only appear in winter-time:


...everything that's a little shy and a little rum.  Some kinds of night animals and people that don't fit in with the others and that nobody believes in...

Lest you be somewhat puzzled at this point, Tove's life partner (or the person whom I'd effectively describe as her wife in these somewhat happier times) was called Tuulikki Pietila.  Note the pronunciation. 

I'm not spoilering this one for you.  You need to read it.  Yeah, there's a cute squirrel.  But not for long, I'm sorry to say.  Trust me, this is intense.  There's a bit with a midnight bonfire that seems like a cross between Labyrinth and The Wicker Man.  Everything about this book is haunting and resonant. 

And so it went on; the books were increasingly beautiful and strange and full of hints and suggestions, until we reached Moominvalley in November, which is basically Waiting For Godot with trolls, as lots of formerly minor characters wait patiently for the Moomin family to return.  We never see them.  I was terribly saddened by that, as a child. 

But this is Ghost Transmissions.  The TV one.  I promised you a They Live In Your TV long before I started proclaiming my love for long lost Finnish authors.  In the early 1980s (yes, them again) a Polish TV company got the rights and a stop-motion serial was made.  It was about a million episodes long and kept referring back to its own story in a way that very little kids' TV at the time ever did.

Communist era animation was perfect for the world of Moominvalley.  It seems strange enough at the best of times; there used to be a running joke at my school:  "In a change to the advertised programme, here is a Polish animation featuring two bits of string screaming at each other for five minutes."

See, I was like this even then.

So, they made the Moomin stories and very faithfully too.  ITV duly bought them and FilmFair, a small UK animation house redid the titles and the music, finishing the job of with a new narration.  Hooray!  Then they showed it and a nation of children started to cry.

It wasn't Disney.  It wasn't cutesy enough; sure, the Moomins were cute, but some of their friends were just plain weird looking.  And there were...things.  Things in that world.  Terrible things.

I was fine with all this.  I'd read the books.  Little My was the greatest character in fiction after H.G. Wells' Time Traveller, as far as I was concerned.  The rest of my generation may have felt differently and here are three notable reasons why.  In reverse order...


3) The Hattifatteners

Sailing in their little boats...on their way to YOU

They look like little ghosts.  They never speak.  We are told early on that they cannot hear or see well, so they sense by vibration and some kind of telepathy.  They are likely to creep up on you in huge numbers if they think you are on their territory.  Oh, and they can give off huge electric shocks sometimes.  Many a child had visions of these bad boys under the bed.



2) The Lady Of The Cold

It's all gone a bit Fendahl. 

Oh, this is an odd one.  Even in the books, they just suddenly mention that there's a danger of The Lady Of The Cold showing up.  She does.  Someone dies.  The animation is worse, she's all tin foil and weird empty eyes.  Those mad radiophonic effects on the soundtrack aren't helping.  This is the Brothers Quay for nine year olds.  Those painted on eyes!  That expressionless face!  She's creeping me out even now.


Should you choose to follow this link, part of the story will be forever spoiled, but you will get to check out some quality animation.  See if you can spot where FilmFair changed the storyline so as not to leave their entire audience sobbing hysterically.  "Over the sea to their own country of snow and ice" -  my arse, FilmFair.  My arse.



So, if you were alive in the early 1980s, there's a good chance you've guessed what's coming now.  Some of you may well have left the page and I'm not joking about that; I've known at least two people who wouldn't even look at a picture of our winner.  Scariest thing on the Moomins and, let's be fair, one of the scariest things on kids' TV ever.  Beasts and small creatures, I present the one, the only...





1)  The Groke

Tove's original.  Oh god, SHE'S LOOKING AT ME

Now that you've all stopped screaming, let me explain.  Actually, no, let this clip explain for you.

Back with me?  The Groke slithered and faded in and out and snarled and hissed and haunted and froze everything.  She's there, the dark, frightening beast in the night.  The worst thing the Moomins can imagine.  She never actually does very much; she doesn't need to.  How many of you dreamed of her shifting, flickering eyes staring in at you from the garden?  How many heard that voice in the night and howled in terror?  Isn't she the worst monster of all?

Actually, no. 

I'm actually at a loss for words right now.

You could go to the books to check this, but it's on screen as well.  The Groke is a monster in her first appearance, no doubt.  She's scary as hell whenever she appears...but after that first encounter, her appearances tend to coincide with Moomintroll's depressions (seriously), anxieties and loss of self-belief.  That, or the depths of winter, when she puts out the midwinter bonfire.  It seems like an act of evil, but then we get the revelation that she's cold; she's seeking warmth that she can never find.
Somewhere between the freezing epic darkness of the Finnish winter and the shadows that haunt so many of us lies the Groke; she's depression and self-hatred and loss of family and love. 

Is it any wonder she's so terrifying?




This Ghost Transmissions is dedicated to my brand new niece, Charlie, who I will be showing round Moominvalley as soon as she's old enough to protect me.