"Daddy Pig is a loving, hard-working father – but he is subject to abuse from Peppa Pig and family every single episode"



Recently the comedian Ben Miller wrote an article saying how much he liked Peppa Pig. I know and love Ben but he’s a fool. In the Radio Times he called it “a masterpiece”.

This show is Dadist. We all had a TV show we were obsessed with as a kid (for me it was MacGyver) and Peppa Pig is my kids’ favourite. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this evil, it is a five-minute long, two-dimensional cartoon and it is animated crack.

If you don’t know how big this is, they’ve done a massive 209 episodes across 180 countries. One of the episodes was 10 minutes long. It was incredible. Front doors and phones went unanswered, children visibly aged, adults on the sofa got DVT.

So each episode – which remember, is about as long as the intro sequence to Game of Thrones – details Peppa Pig, her younger brother George, Mummy Pig and of course Daddy Pig. Now, both parents work. Mummy Pig… well, nobody’s quite sure what Mummy Pig does.

Even after 200 episodes Wikipedia has no idea, other than the fact she’s stuck to a computer at home a lot. So I’m guessing Facebook.

Daddy’s humiliation is complete as the contempt felt for him now spans three pig generations

So what about Daddy Pig? He is a good dad. He is loving, spontaneous, hard working and seems to make an enormous amount of time for his family.

His job? Architect. That’s right, he’s not just an architect, he’s a pig who became an architect. He’s achieved. He should be the focus of the programme: Architect Pig. There’s a PROPER children’s programme.

He’s due some respect. He should be revered as a model husband and father. But that’s not what happens.

Let me give you a small taster of a few episodes and even if you don’t have kids I hope you see my point. If not, like Ben, you are a fool or a racist.

Daddy loses at draughts to George, a toddler. A toddler! Daddy tries ballet dancing and gets crushed after trying to throw Mummy Pig in the air and catch her, something the two of them did in their youth. Daddy says nothing – NOTHING – about how much weight Mummy Pig has piled on since their youth, taking all the blame for the accident on himself. Peppa says: “SILLY DADDY.”

The password to get into Peppa’s treehouse is “Daddy’s Big Tummy”. Daddy is upset by these cruel words but is forced to say them in order to be allowed into the treehouse. He doesn’t fit in the treehouse because he’s too big and so is forced to take the roof off to get in.

They all go for a plate of Granny’s biscuits but Granny won’t let anyone eat the biscuits unless they say “Daddy’s Big Tummy”, and so Daddy’s humiliation is complete as the contempt felt for him now spans three pig generations.

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Peppa makes Daddy do 100 press-ups while she’s in the next room. He cheats by counting loudly while watching the TV. Peppa says: “NAUGHTY DADDY.”

While playing in the sea, everyone decides to splash Daddy. They then use him as a dinghy and bury him in the sand. Baking in the sun in conditions similar to a Japanese prisoner of war camp, Daddy is made to beg for his straw hat in a scene reminiscent of the film Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, starring David Bowie.

They then forget all about him and go to leave the beach. However, they DO realise that they are missing a straw hat and go back for it. They find Daddy, less important in their minds than an item of disposable beach wear, up to his neck in sand and sweltering beneath the hat. Peppa says: “WE FORGOT ALL ABOUT YOU DADDY!”

And that’s just series one – 209 episodes of Daddy Pig soaking up the thoughtless abuse of a family that refers to his weight problem every single episode. Hours of Daddy Pig doing the wrong thing and being ridiculed.

So by now you realise the hierarchy in the show is: Mummy Pig, Peppa Pig, Granny Pig, Grandpa Pig, George Pig, all the other animals, all the pets owned by the other animals which for some unexplained reason are not sentient, the trees, the muddy puddles, the lice and the parasites, then Daddy Pig.

But then, halfway through series four, he does something inexplicable: he builds a house on the adjacent hill and sells it to a family of WOLVES. Bear in mind that he is the head of the household to a family of pigs; there is precedent here that Daddy Pig MUST be aware of.

We know that the pig house is badly built; we’ve seen Daddy Pig knock a wall down just trying to hang a picture. We KNOW that one good huff and puff will have it down. But he goes ahead and puts WOLVES in the next house.

Just think what must be going through his mind after 300 or so episodes of ritual humiliation. He wants the whole family to be torn to pieces. And he’s right. He’s RIGHT to want that.