When you think of the term ‘builder’, what comes to your mind?
A weird office where the guy tells you that he’s going to burn a hole in your wallet only to let you live in a place where there’s no tolerance for ‘boozing’ and ‘girls’.
Right?
But no. For every 90s kid, the term builder easily relates to Bob. Yes. The monosyllable word is immediately followed by a ‘Kar ke dikhayenge’ (or Can we fix it).
This is the point where you go ‘HAAN BHAI HAAN’!
We know you want to hear the theme song ASAP so here it is:
For the uninitiated, here is what Bob the Builder is all about:
In the original series, Bob appears in a stop motion animated show as a building contractor, specialising in masonry, along with his colleague Wendy, various neighbours and friends, and their gang of anthropomorphised work-vehicles and equipment.
Basically, Mangolpuri ka maal phoonkne se aisi harkate hoti hai.
Scoop, Muck, Daisy, Rolly, Lofty and Wendy did a lot of projects and helped Bob save the day by building more and more stuff.
In each episode, Bob and his group help with renovations, construction, and repairs and with other projects as needed.
The show emphasises conflict resolution, co-operation, socialisation and various learning skills. Bob’s catchphrase is “Can we fix it (Kar ke dikhayenge)?”, to which the other characters respond with “Yes we can (Haan bhai haan)!”
If you think that this is an easy job, please note that being an engineer isn’t simple.
Academics aside, you need to battle the ever mounting expectations while you’re in college followed by an intense job hunting once you’re out of it. Bob managed to ace all that and had a show dedicated to it.
This show was like a miracle waiting impatiently to happen. Bob the Builder showed in a majestic way that shows for children don’t need to be corny, preachy or shallow for children to appreciate them.
All characters are extremely charismatic; I seriously find it impossible to dislike any of them. The stop-motion animation is spectacularly beautiful. But most of all, I think it’s the writing that truly makes the show. I don’t remember seeing any story that went into a tired, obvious cliché just for the sake of being ‘educational’.
The focus is always on the diverse construction jobs – a most interesting and rich subject for children – and on topics like teamwork, cooperation and friendship. The stories are very well thought out. I have to say that several moments of the series are just plain funny, and I actually laughed out loud sometimes.
And just like a typical ‘engineer’; Bob relies heavily on jugaad to make things work.
Even when he has been acing it for a long time, he gets little to no attention from Wendy. Typical engineer ki zindagi, no?
Itni naainsaafi kyu?
Last but not the least, Spud was the greatest character of them all. He was a scarecrow who’d inevitably mess things up for the entire squad. But he was a talking scarecrow. You realise that? A TALKING SCARECROW!
Isn’t that like one of the biggest requirements to be a super-villain?
Bob the Builder helped me realise that good things can be built brick by brick with a team of rag-tag individuals. But the entire process also requires a whole lot of maal – like kaafi zyaada maal.
Although this might not be the best advice for kids, but I’m an adult now. I can watch kids shows and tell you how fucked they are. Yes, Bob can probably fix my self-esteem.