Fans of kids TV show Teletubbies were delighted when the original face of the sun baby turned up on Channel 4’s revamped Big Breakfast.
Wow, the Big Breakfast and Teletubbies in the same sentence – that’s going to be a trip down memory lane for many people of a certain age.
Anyone who remembers the bizarre world of the Teletubbies knows that one of the most recognisable faces in Teletubbyland was the baby that lived in the sun.
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Obviously, that baby was a real person.
Being a real person, that person has now grown into an adult.
While that’s no big surprise – in fact, quite the opposite – people were still shocked to see Jess Smith, the name of the aforementioned real person, turn up on Channel 4.
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According to her Instagram, Jess was born in 1995 and was the face of the sun baby from 1997 until 2015.
Interestingly enough, the original run only went from 1997 until 2001, but a new version came out in 2015 with a new sun baby, making Jess’ statement accurate as well.
On social media, Jess revealed how she’d sometimes tried to hide her early stardom from the world but had decided to come clean about it.
She wrote: “I’ve decided it’s time to tell everyone.
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“I used to hide it but after a lot of encouragement from my friends at university, I’ve gained the confidence to come out with it.
“I am the sun from Teletubbies.
“There have been quite a few people pretending to be the sun but only I could tell you the real story.”
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So, what happened – she says – is that she had been taken to a hospital for a check-up as a young child but happened to be there on the exact same day that a producer from the show had been in and asked if there were any ‘smiley babies’.
Can you just do that? Surely there must be procedures against that sort of thing.
Anyway, Jess was one such smiley baby, and was therefore selected for the role.
She continued: “While recording my dad held a teddy bear behind the camera to get me to laugh and rolled a toy racing car to get me to look down at the camera, and it obviously worked.”
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Fans of the show – who are now definitively too old for Teletubbies – were incredibly pleased to see her.
One said simply: “Omg.”
Another commented: “Blimey eh-oh,”
Another wrote: “The sun baby! how cute!”
Topics: TV and Film, Celebrity, UK News, Channel 4
Tom Wood