Editing Smallfilms (section)

==Series development and philosophy==
Postgate and Firmin recognised that their product was not sold to children, but to commissioning television executives.<ref name="BBCCult"/> Postgate described in a later interview the then "gentlemanly and rather innocent" business of programme commissioning thus: "We would go to the BBC once a year, show them the films we'd made, and they would say: 'Yes, lovely, now what are you going to do next?' We would tell them, and they would say: 'That sounds fine, we'll mark it in for eighteen months from now', and we would be given praise and encouragement and some money in advance, and we'd just go away and do it".<ref name="BBCObit">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7770882.stm|title=Obituary, Oliver Postgate|publisher=BBC|date=9 December 2008|access-date=9 December 2008}}</ref> The only occasion that this informal arrangement caused any real difficulty emerged in the 1965 series ''The Pogles'', which BBC management felt was too frightening for the intended audience, and led to their asking for a change of direction: resulting in a revised show, and a change of name to ''Pogles' Wood''.

Postgate had strict views regarding storylines, which perhaps limited the possibilities for series development. When asked if the ''Clangers'' adventures were quite surreal sometimes, Postgate replied: "They're surreal but logical. I have a strong prejudice against fantasy for its own sake. Once one gets to a point beyond where cause-and-effect mean anything at all, then science fiction becomes science nonsense. Everything that happened was strictly logical, according to the laws of physics which happened to apply in that part of the world".<ref name="BBCCult">{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/news/cult/2005/04/27/18961.shtml|title=Cult TV – Interview with Oliver Postgate|publisher=BBC Cult TV|date=27 April 2005|access-date=9 December 2008}}</ref>

In June 2015, the BBC's Mark Savage reported: "Firmin said the ''Clangers''{{'}} surrealism had led to accusations that Postgate was taking hallucinogenic drugs". Firmin told Savage: "People used to say, 'Ooh, what's Oliver on, with all of these weird ideas?' And we used to say, 'He's on cups of tea and biscuits'".<ref name="BBC News 1 June 2015">{{cite news | last= Savage | first= Mark | title= Michael Palin: Narrating The Clangers is 'Zen-like' | url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-32959628 | date=1 June 2015 | work =[[BBC News]] | access-date=1 June 2015}}</ref>

The Smallfilms system was reliant on the company's two key employees, Postgate and Firmin, and was devoid of modern considerations and essentials, as Postgate pointed out: "[We were] excused the interference of educationalists, sociologists and other pseudo-scientists, which produces eventually a confection of formulae which have no integrity. No, the mainspring of what we did was because it was fun".<ref name="BBCCult"/>

Recognising their commissioning audience, Smallfilms purposefully developed storylines that would engage both adults and children. While the storylines and production were remembered by children, the adult jokes, like those about the Welsh in ''Ivor the Engine'',<ref name="BBCCult"/> or the fact that the Clangers swore occasionally,<ref name="CliveBanks"/> gave the films an instant parental engagement, and a later nostalgic revival amongst former children re-watching their favourite programmes.