The Tablecloth

It is cold in outer space, we come to the Clangers' planet. The Froglets are outside, they are cold. They rattle. Small and Tiny Clanger find them and wonder how to make them warm. They fetch a big bowl of hot blue-string pudding. Tiny Clanger offers a piece of blue-string pudding to the froglet who takes it in what passes for his mouth but instead of eating it the froglet executes some nimble pirouettes and winds the blue-string round and round itself like an overcoat. The other froglets do the same and dance away delighted in their overcoats. They show their overcoats to the Soup-Dragon who is fond of blue-string puddings. She has a nibble at the overcoats and they unwind. The Soup-dragon becomes inextricably wound up in blue-string pudding. Tiny Clanger fetches a cutter and cuts them free. The froglets without their overcoats shiver with cold. Small Clanger fetches the tablecloth and they cut cloaks out of it for the froglets. The froglets are delighted and hop away. Mother Clanger sees the holes in the tablecloth. She wails and blows her top. Major Clanger says 'listen'. They hear a whistling sound. They go to a lid and watch as an Earth-type lunar module or such descends on its rockets and after some preliminaries a human-type astronaut emerges and lopes about muttering in astronaut's jargon. It sets up a small seismometer beacon and also a handsome tablecloth fixed to a short pole. He salutes the tablecloth which has stars and stripes and Hammer and Sickle on it and blasts off. The Clangers collect their new tablecloth gratefully.

Major Clanger, Mother Clanger, Small Clanger, The Soup Dragon, Tiny Clanger, The Iron Chicken

The Clangers voices were played on swannee whistles by Oliver Postgate and Stephen Sylvester.