Bagpuss 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, the
There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly rhyme were collected in the journal "Hoosier Folklore" in December 1947, beginning respectively "There was an old lady — she swallowed a fly", "Poor little old lady, she swallowed a fly" and "A little old lady swallowed a fly". All three list the progression from fly to spider, bird, cat, dog and cow, finishing with the horse, with variations to the rhymes for each animal. The definitive version was written by Rose Bonne (lyrics) and Canadian/English folk artist Alan Mills and copyrighted in 1952. At that time it was entitled simply "I Know an Old Lady." A widely distributed version