I have a theory of the origin of teletubbies. Even though they aren't relevant like they used to be, I think there are still some lessons that need to be learned from our illiterate posterity. I say posterity because that's my theory. My theory is thus: In the far distant future, the very far distant future that is, many hundreds of thousands of years, possibly millions, long after all the dolphins left earth for the heart of the galaxy, long after earth became completely uninhabitable and was then reterraformed by the moon colonists, much past all that. With the melting of the ice caps and dwindling molten core, the land area of earth is one large temperate band of flat green field that runs between what used to be called the tropic of cancer and capricorn around the entire planet. Everything above and below that are calm, shallow, warm oceans. Why it's like that is of course completely lost. That knowledge might have still been on the moon in some forgotten records vault except when earth was pulled out of the solar system by a collapsing star, the moon collided with Mars and both Lunar and Martian colonies were completely destroyed. In its new home, Earth is equidistant between two ordinary m-class stars providing permanent daylight and moderate temperatures to both hemispheres. Earth, now having no moon and no revolutions, has no tides and no wind. It is completely silent. The few humans who made it off the moon before it's obliteration landed on the earth and found it to be pleasant. There are no trees, no wildlife, and due to genetic engineering with moon grass, the grass on earth never grows more than 5 inches. Mixed in with the grass they would occasionally find large flat brown mushrooms which they began to eat. As the settlers took the space elevator and not a starship from the moon, they came only with that they had in their hands so they had no technology to synthesize the mushrooms. They had to gather them. Thus they became a foraging people. As the need to eat began to overtake all other needs, things like clothes and material possessions lost all importance. Communication became more gestural. Talking became more of an annoyance because you had to stop eating to talk. As the centuries went by, the civilization of humans reverted back completely to primitive gathering tribes. They banded together in groups and guarded the ground with the most mushrooms. As the need to eat increased, groups would encroach on other groups' territory causing conflicts which were settled by trying to knock each other over with their stomachs, running and jumping at each other. The person who was left standing was the victor and could collect the mushrooms. In this manner territories were shaped. They would paint pictures on their stomachs using the few colors they could find from the underside of the mushrooms. After each battle, they would paint new pictures of the preceding conflict. As the tribes grew larger, they would use the colors to align themselves to a group. There was one color per group and they painted their whole bodies except for their large stomachs with one of four colors: red, yellow, green or purple. It was in this state that the earth was discovered by benevolent aliens. The aliens didn't know what to do with this strange group of colored people who couldn't talk, couldn't communicate, ate all the time, painted themselves and fought constantly. The aliens didn't want to introduce another belligerent species into the galaxy. They didn't know where humans came from or their history, all they knew is what they saw. So like any good aliens, they quickly abducted the humans and began experimenting with them. What they found out is that the mushrooms they had been eating for years was actually changing their physiology. Their skin was becoming softer, like the top of a mushroom. Their brains were becoming more primitive, almost all conscious thought being replaced by the desire to eat. The aliens decided to simply to speed up the process. They dropped them back on earth a new species. Large round heads, colored furry bodies, soft stomachs and the aliens even added a special feature. Since they seemed to like painting their stomachs, they implanted special monitors to send the humans messages and instructions. They gave them special antennas on their heads which would allow the transmissions. The aliens then did a small bit of terraforming of their own. They created a homes for them in the grass and gave them robots which could synthesize the mushroom tops they loved to eat so much. During the terraforming, they discovered a few items from the ancient times like a scooter and purse and fashioned new ones for them. From a faded picture they found in a purse of a baby dressed up as a sunflower, they created a baby sun image which would simulate the rising and setting of the sun as found on the alien's home planet. They planted flowers and made puddles and put speakers around to instruct the humans on specific behavior like when it's time to go to sleep and wake up. The Lalas, the Pos, the Dipsys and the Tinky Winkys were each named by the first one of their color to speak. The aliens then took one each and grouped them in fours and transplanted them all over the green fields of earth with special boundaries to keep them separated. The aliens, still not really sure where these people came from, began broadcasting a live monitoring feed towards the general direction that planet earth came from in hopes that someone would pick it up. But as an added measure of assurance, they time-phased the signal so that it would reach whomever was out here at any given time, like our time for instance. We are able to pick up their broadcast signal and the people at the tv network decided to make a show out of it. Of course they don't really know what they had stumbled upon, that it's really a record of human life in the far distant future. But that's what it is. Humans have become teletubbies. And you will too if you're not careful.
