Bagpuss Pictures. Bagpuss Bagpuss is a British children's television series, made by Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate through their company Smallfilms. The series of 13 episodes was first broadcast from 12 February 1974 to 7 May 1974. The title character was "a saggy, old cloth cat, baggy, and a bit loose at the seams". Although only 13 episodes were made, it remains fondly remembered, and was frequently repeated in the UK for 13 years. In 1999 "Bagpuss" topped a BBC poll for the UK's favourite children's TV programme. Each programme began in the same way: through a series of sepia photographs,
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly of the song was released on Brunswick Records in 1953, where it was sung by Burl Ives. Ives' rendition appears on his album, "Folk Songs, Dramatic and Humorous"—which debuted in late summer, 1953. The 1961 illustrated book by Rose Bonne also indicates that the lyrics are hers, whereas the music was composed by Alan Mills. The following is one form of the lyrics, that are representative of the nature of this cumulative lyric: There was an old lady who swallowed a fly; There was an old lady who swallowed a spider; <br>That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her! There