Flower Pot Men is a British programme for young children produced by BBC Television. It was first transmitted in 1952, and repeated regularly for more than twenty years. A reboot of the show called Bill and Ben was produced in 2001.

The original programme was part of a BBC children's television series titled Watch with Mother, featuring a different programme each weekday, most of them involving string puppets.

Premise
The Flower Pot Men was the story of Bill and Ben, two little men made of flower pots who lived at the bottom of an English suburban garden. A third character, Little Weed, of indeterminate species resembling either a sunflower or a dandelion with a smiling face, was shown growing between two large flowerpots. The three were also sometimes visited by a tortoise called Slowcoach and, in one particular episode, the trio met a faintly mysterious character made out of potatoes, Dan the potato man.

Typically, while the "man who worked in the garden" would be away having his dinner, the two Flower Pot Men, Bill and Ben, would emerge from their pots. After a minor adventure, a slight mishap would occur, for which someone would then take the blame: "Which of these two flowerpot men, was it Bill or was it Ben?" the narrator would trill in a quavering soprano; the culprit would then confess, before the gardener's footsteps would be heard coming up the garden path; the Flower Pot Men then would vanish into their pots and the "Goodbye" screen would appear. The final punch-line was, "..and I think the little house knew something about it; don't you?".

Production
According to her adopted daughter Alison Gassier, Freda Lingstrom got the idea for the show after spending time in her woodshed with a flowerpot. She assembled the production crew, which consisted mainly of those who had worked on her previous show Andy Pandy, that being her associate Maria Bird, puppeteers Audrey Atterbury and Molly Gibson, and opera singer Gladys Whitred. The only new personnel was Peter Hawkins, who voiced both Bill and Ben, inventing their gibberish language, named Oddle-Poddle. He based the language off of select words such as "Slogalog" (Slowcoach the Tortoise) and "Haddap" (Hello).

The puppets were made to look as if they were made from flowerpots. Cupcake holders were used for their hats, which sometimes caught onto their strings. Peter particularly praised Audrey’s puppetry for being very precise. The scripts would be written in English, with Peter translating them into Oddle-Poddle.

Episodes
No. in series - Title Original air date

1 "Seeds" 18 December 1952
2 "Musical Vegetables" 25 December 1952
3 "Cabbages" 1 January 1953
4 "The Potato Man" 8 January 1953
5 "Tiny Men" 15 January 1953
6 "Stickmen" 22 January 1953
7 "Shavings Men" 29 January 1953
8 "Stilts" 5 February 1953
9 "Steamroller" 12 February 1953
10 "Scarecrow" 19 February 1953
11 "Slowcoach Flies" 26 February 1953
12 "Mud Pies" 5 March 1953
13 "Bath in Hat" 12 March 1953
14 "Babies" 19 March 1953
15 "Babies Grow Up" 26 March 1953
16 "Live Chicks" 2 April 1953
17 "Icicles" 9 April 1953
18 "Boot Race" 16 April 1953
19 "Acrobats" 22 April 1953
20 "Bellows" 29 April 1953
21 "Water Lilies" 6 May 1953
22 "Turnip Faces" 13 May 1953
23 "Umbrella" 20 May 1953
24 "Fairy Queen" 27 May 1953
25 "Weathercock" 3 June 1953
26 "Flying Boots" 10 June 1953

This lady has the kind of posh upper-class accent--- Received Pronunciation---- that not too many English people use daily anymore.

This was very cute and simple.

I wish kids could enjoy cute and simple again.

I watched this yesterday and it was very cute. I was born in 1990 but this kinda show is timeless. Indeed, anyone born before 1992 will love seeing a show from before TV got disgustingly "politically correct". The modern BBC could learn a lot from these old gems.