A BBN Original
Field Trip
A kids' show that explains how grown-up life actually works.
Miss Marigold hosts a cheerful children's show from a felt-board studio. Every episode she and Scraps, her paper-bag puppet, take the "boys and girls" on a field trip to one everyday adult thing (the airport, the DMV, jury duty, the office printer, tipping) and explain how it really works. The facts are true. The sing-song format keeps cracking under them.
Every episode
3 episodes, a minute or so eachThe cast
Miss Marigold
host of Field Trip, a children's show, for eleven years
relentlessly sunny, sing-song, talks to the camera as "boys and girls", turns everything into a counting game or a felt-board shape; the smile never drops, but her eye twitches as adult reality piles up; secretly has the same unfinished errands as everyone (a parking ticket in her cardigan pocket)
Scraps
a brown paper lunch-bag puppet with orange yarn hair, her sidekick; 41 in puppet years
dry, sarcastic, has done every one of these errands and has the scars; secretly the one who knows the real, useful fact and says it plainly; nobody knows who operates him and he will not discuss it
Doreen
the clerk behind whatever counter the field trip visits (DMV window, gate agent, court clerk, store manager); the same Doreen every time, and nobody remarks on it except Scraps
monotone, unhurried, her own mug, follows the rules exactly as written, quietly the most powerful person in any room
Clive
the episode's Real Grown-Up Helper: whoever actually does the job (a pilot, a jury administrator, the office IT guy, a delivery driver); a new job every episode, always Clive
tired, patient, completely honest; answers the host's cheerful questions with the plain true version, which is always worse
Running gags to watch for
- the APPLAUSE light flashes at the worst fact
- Doreen works every counter in every town; only Scraps notices
- Miss Marigold turns a grim fact into a felt-board shape
- the counting song that ends on a fee
- "Can you say that with me, boys and girls?" and the word is "non-refundable"
- Scraps has a laminated card for everything
- Clive is always on the last hour of his shift
- nobody knows who operates Scraps