Subscribe!The Little Green Man (1985)
First episode title: The Visitor from Space
How familiar with the show am I?: I hadn't heard of it.
A British storybook-style show about a boy who makes friends with an alien. Narrated by Jon Pertwee, best known for starring in Doctor Who, and we've previously heard him as another alien, Spotty from SuperTed - wow, that's typecasting!
A cheery choir of children in the theme song explain a bunch of things that we're about to find out in the episode anyway, so let's skip over that. It's a short show.
We barely have time to register that we're seeing a young boy reading a book in a living room when the narration tells us that "Skeets heard a noise". The whole thing really is narrated, in the traditional sense, with the narrator even telling us that [character name] said [whatever they said] and with his voice barely changing to fit the character, although Skeets has a bit of a Cockney accent whenever it's his turn to speak. And yes, Skeets is the young human boy, not an alien.
He runs to the window and sees a light falling down from the sky, which turns out to be a spaceship landing in his garden! Its door opens and the titular character walks out - he's shaped like an egg and his clothes are as green as his skin, making it hard to tell exactly which parts of him are clothed. And he's accompanied by a hovering yellow ball of fuzz with a big face.
Skeets runs out and the narration tells us that the green man and the yellow ball seemed very friendly, I suppose to skip over the whole business of running around screaming you'd usually get when an alien shows up. Skeets asks who the green man is and why he's here, and his response is some alien-sounding gibberish, which not only does the narration translate for us:
Little Green Man: I've come from a great way off to talk to Sydney Keets. Is that your name?
But it also, in a quite hilariously casual way, says that Skeets found he could understand the alien. Not even that he was astonished by it or anything, just he "found that he could understand" and that's all we need to know about that! Skeets clarifies that he is Sydney Keets but everyone calls him Skeets, and that's how he's referred to for the rest of the time.
Every time the alien speaks, we hear the gibberish first and then the translation, by the way. On the one hand, it's something distinctive and interesting about the character. On the other hand, all his dialogue takes twice as long! He asks if he can come inside to talk because he's come all this way just to meet him. Kind of creepy but okay. Skeets doesn't have a problem with it but wants to know what he'll tell his parents if they see him, and the green man explains that only Skeets can see or hear him and that he has to keep him a secret. That sounds just like something a hallucination would say...
Skeets goes back in the house, and, for no clear reason, lets the little green man in through the window rather than letting him come through the door with him. Seriously, no reason at all - Skeets just "thought it best", apparently.
Inside, they do proper introductions. The green man explains that his name translates to English as "little green man". I love the subtle implication that no-one else on his planet is that size or colour. They might all look just like humans! So Skeets says he'll just call him Greenie to make it easier. Greenie also explains that his pet (the yellow ball) is named Zoom Zoom, and that they're from the planet Zombazand, which is a long way away. He says that he's come to learn about Earth children and what they do, and used his magic powers to pick a child to be his friend, which turned out to be Skeets. Yes! Keep it vague! Magic powers can just pick an Earth child at random. Then again, perhaps the powers picked whichever child would just accept him rather than running away screaming!
Greenie asks Skeets if he will help him, and Zoom Zoom, trying to be encouraging, nuzzles Skeets's cheek, which feels as fuzzy as you'd expect. It's fascinating the way Zoom Zoom floats around.
Skeets agrees to help but still doesn't quite believe about no-one else being able to see Greenie and Zoom Zoom, so they prove it by fading into nothingness before his eyes, and then back again. Skeets then points out that the spaceship will be seen, so Greenie extends two antennae from the top of his head, which shoot a magic ray at the ship and turn it invisible. Well then. I guess Greenie just has whichever powers are most useful at any given time!
Actually, he immediately says that he can't do just anything in response to Skeets expressing a similar sentiment, but he can do a lot, as can Zoom Zoom. The yellow fuzz ball demonstrates by making segments of himself vanish, so that there's only three-quarters of him, then half, then a quarter, in all combinations. But then he disappears, making Skeets concerned, and Greenie reassures him that Zoom Zoom just gets carried away sometimes, and shortly afterwards he pops back into existence. And the narrator actually says "and everyone laughed"!
We're told that Skeets and Greenie have a long conversation about "games and toys and books". Makes sense, if he's here to learn about what children do. But then they're interrupted by a bell ringing outside. It's a fire engine. It looks like it was pretty old-fashioned even in 1985 for a fire engine to have a bell rather than a siren, so this is the writers thinking back to their own childhoods, I feel. Greenie doesn't know what a fire engine is, so Skeets briefly explains and then they run outside to take a look.
There's a fire in a building around the corner - Skeets says that the blazing building is the children's hospital! Because of course we wouldn't have nearly as much sympathy for the victims of the fire if they weren't sick children. Skeets and the aliens approach the firemen and overhear them telling a news reporter that they've saved some children already but then the escape chute itself caught fire, so for now they're just shooting more water at the fire while they wait for a new one to be brought. The narration specifies that the fire is still getting worse, though. What caused this fire, anyway?
Skeets asks Greenie if he can help, and Greenie spots a discarded piece of hosepipe on the ground. The piece gives the impression of being cut off from a full hosepipe - is there any reason one small piece would have become separated like that? I can't think of one. Greenie tells Skeets to tell the firemen he'll bring something they can use, then picks up the pipe and sneaks around the corner. Good thing none of the fire fighters looks around to notice a floating piece of hosepipe!
Skeets joins Greenie around the corner, where Greenie extends his antennae again to make a beam that expands the size of the pipe! Now it's big enough to be used as a chute, and Skeets pulls it over to the firemen, who are able to stretch it up against the building and let all the children slide down. Woo! Yay! It worked!
The narration tells us about how happy the children and the firemen were as we see shots of each. And then we tie up all the loose ends - the firemen gradually put the fire out, the children get taken to other hospitals, and Greenie turns the hose small again once he's able to get it out of sight.
It seemed like it was over but then somehow Greenie ends up in a slapstick routine! He trips and gets his head stuck in a ladder being carried by two firemen who, of course, don't know he's there! The ladder gets attached to the fire engine, Greenie struggles to free himself, and ends up with one foot in a bucket and the other foot in a fireman's helmet in the process. I'm guessing the main aim of the show was to educate children about the world vicariously through Greenie's eyes, but they wanted to make sure they had some comedy in there as well to make sure it's entertaining too, so they had this episode (or even each episode?) end like this.
Skeets frees Greenie's feet and Zoom Zoom bounces on Greenie's head to push him out of the ladder. Skeets jokes about Greenie being the only one to have gotten hurt after all, and Greenie shouts something at Skeets that the narrator doesn't translate, instead just remarking, "Well, really!" Yes, I think we're honestly meant to assume that Greenie said something quite rude!
This was a sweet little show. It raises a lot of questions that I doubt it ever answered, but I don't think that was ever the point. It's just a chance to learn a bit about the world and to see the funny magic little green man do his thing.