During the seventies, I impatiently waited through ITV's annoying children's programme Rainbow on TV2 so that I could watch The Tomorrow People, another ITV series that I identified with as a gay teenager. Imagine my surprise when I found out that Rainbow had become an LGBT media icon in its own right! Looking back now, I can see how it might have happened. After all, George the Hippo was pink and somewhat campy, Zippy wore a rainbow on his chest and spoke in a high-pitched voice, and one website has an incriminating video capture of Bungle the bear in awful drag. Indeed, Scott Stevens' Happy Clapping Homos website reproduces the Rainbow cast, although not with the annoying and badly dressed Geoffrey and the ghastly musak band that accompanied them. I suppose that we can now expect to see more deranged Christian Right groups froth at the mouth and accuse Zippy of being a hidden pawn of the heinous New Age movement, which seeks to seduce the unwary (and children) with bad animation, crap mass produced plastic toys, and saccharin sweetness. No doubt the puppets dance repeatedly around a satanic inverted pentagram and cackle demonically as they plan world domination on their days off. Don't laugh. Remember, they also believe these things about Spongebob Squarepants, the Smurves, Teletubbies, Bananas in Pyjamas, My Little Pony and the Care Bears. And has anyone noticed that TV3's new Boobah toddlers educational programme contains the sinister polychromatic hues of the rainbow again? And they dance around! And they behave like they've taken E! Recommended Reading: Happy Clapping Homos: http://www.happyclappinghomos.com Craig Young - 11th March 2005