BBC Childrens' TV character seems to say 'F*** your mother' in Mandarin

A TELLY viewer in China rang the BBC claiming he heard a character in hit kids' show In The Night Garden say: "F*** your mother", we can reveal.

The gibberish talk of one of the tumbly, pepper-pot Tombliboos - Unn, Ooo and Eee - made it sound like the toy had sworn in Mandarin.

A spokesman for BBC Worldwide, who sold the show to China, last night pledged to investigate.

A source said: "Someone was watching the show in Beijing and was convinced they heard a Tombliboo say 'f*** your mother' which, as you can imagine, is not on in any language."

"Mandarin is all about tonality so you can end up saying something quite different to what you actually mean if you get it wrong."

The series is produced by Ragdoll, which makes the Teletubbies.

It features several odd-looking characters and is set in a magic kingdom "that exists between waking and sleeping in a child's imagination".

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http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/2970809/BBC-childrens-TV-character-seems-to-say-F-your-mother-in-Mandarin.html#ixzz0np5sViOH

Those would give me nightmares, for sure!

It was like Barney on LSD.

We had to endure those, too. :(

I sent a message asking for the phrase, but haven't heard back

Fuck the fruit, the cabbage, and everything else...


http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005195.html

I took a year of Chinese back in the 8th grade, and Mr. Li was quite distressed when we used the wrong tonality on the verb "to be" and ended up saying "shit" instead.