Along with Knightmare, this was an ITV kids' favourite of the eighties and nineties. It consisted of nine seasons, each of which had its own title. There is no official title for the series as a whole but it's known as T-Bag for simplicity's sake.
T-Bag (short for either Tallulah or Tabatha, depending on which season you're watching) is a witch who wants to Take Over the World but is constantly thwarted either by a young girl collecting the scattered MacGuffins which can defeat her and using them to do just that, or by having her own MacGuffins scattered through time and space and a young girl beating her to finding them again. There were five different girls (Debbie, Holly, Sally, Polly and Penny) throughout eight seasons and the ages at which they were cast changed to match the age of the one constant character, T-Bag's assistant, T-Shirt. Originally, he was a little boy but, being played by the same actor throughout nine seasons, he wasn't so little anymore by the end. T-Shirt (short for Thomas) is abducted from the real world by Tallulah and put under mind control in order to brew T-Bag's magical-power-giving tea and help her collect the MacGuffins. At the end of each season, T-Bag almost reaches her goal but then the MacGuffins are reunited and T-Bag's control over T-Shirt is broken and he helps the girl defeat T-Bag and return home. When Tabatha came along, T-Shirt seemed to be helping her out quite willingly but then Tabatha wasn't really scary. For Season Nine the idea of a girl on the opposite side of things was dropped and a previously unmentioned cousin of T-Shirt appeared instead.
Originally intended to be reasonably educational but that idea was dropped pretty quickly.
Seasons.
- Wonders in Letterland (1985).
- T-Bag Strikes Again (1986).
- T-Bag Bounces Back (1987).
- Turn On to T-Bag (1988).
- Revenge of the T-Set (1989).
- T-Bag and the Pearls of Wisdom (1990).
- T-Bag and the Rings of Olympus (1991).
- T-Bag and the Sunstones of Montezuma (1992).
- Take Off With T-Bag - which broke the mould and changed the format. (1992).
Christmas Specials.
- T-Bag's Christmas Cracker (1988).
- T-Bag's Christmas Carol (1989).
- T-Bag's Christmas Ding Dong (1990).
- T-Bag's Christmas Turkey (1991).
This programme provides examples of:
- Adults Are Useless
- Alliterative Name: Sally Simpkins.
- Artifact Title: Or rather, Artifact Theme Naming. In Wonders in Letterland, the entire world had an alphabet theme, so the T-based villains fitted with that. In the later seasons, not so much.
- Badass Adorable: All the heroines.
- Big Bad: Tallulah more than Tabatha.
- Big Good: Apparently, The T-Set. But only its leader, The High-T, appeared and only in one season.
- Bound and Gagged Happens occasionally to our heroines. Goes with the territory.
- Christmas Episode: Four of them.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Tabitha.
- Criminal Amnesiac: Debbie in "Black-Hearted Belle" suffers a blow to the head and gets convinced she's The Dragon to the titular pirate.
- Deadpan Snarker: T-Bag more than any other character (especially Tallulah).
- T-Shirt in his rebellious moments.
- Early Instalment Weirdness: The first series, Wonders in Letterland (later retitled Trouble with T-Bag) had quite a few differences to what would be become the standard formula the following year; first of all, the series began and ended with location filming (which would never happen again) of Debbie arriving at/leaving the curiosity shop. Instead of there being one or two different guests in each episode, the majority of guest characters were played by Jim Norton who also played the owner of the shop. Rather than each episode taking place in a fantasy location, the episodes all took place on the game board as Debbie had to pass a simple task to retrieve the letter she needed. Even weirder, T-Bag had a musical number in the first episode, while the final episode contained an animation about reading (as the series was conceived with an educational angle, which was quickly forgotten). Also, the final episode didn't end with T-Bag being (seemingly) destroyed; rather she ended up powerless and working for T-Shirt.
- Edutainment Show: As already indicated, it started out as this: in the first series the plot coupons were letters and in the second they were numbers, enabling some Sesame Street style expounding of basic literacy and numeracy, although even by the second series this was being downplayed. In the third, the plot coupons are bells and there's no curriculum aspect at all.
- Fiery Redhead: Debbie is a ginger and has the go-getter personality to match.
- For the Evulz: Why else would a witch want to take over the world?
- Gotta Catch 'Em All
- Good Colours, Evil Colours: Nearly all of T-Bag's dresses were red whilst Debbie wore yellow and Sally and Holly wore pink.
- Heel–Face Turn: What T-Shirt did in the last episodes of most seasons.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: T-Shirt grew into one. Well, almost; he still kept losing the MacGuffins.
- Ill-Timed Sneeze: In Episode 5 of "T-Bag Strikes Again", Debbie sneezes when creeping into a sultan's chamber, thereby alerting him to her presence. She manages to hide successfully, however. This is an unusual instance of a character sneezing before she has actually hidden herself.
- Instant Sedation: Penny, in Napoleon and Josephine.
- It Belongs in a Museum: An archaeologist's view on The Sunstones of Montezuma.
- Later-Installment Weirdness: The final series, Take Off with T-Bag was a far departure from what came before; T-Bag was now the protagonist as she set off in her spaceship chasing a set of golden envelopes in search of her birthday surprise. T-Shirt accompanied her, of course, but now the two were joined by his Chinese cousin Tow Ling Shirt (who was likely set up as a potential replacement for T-Shirt as John Hasler has stated that he probably wouldn't have returned had the show continued).
- Large Ham: T-Bag, big time.
- Laughably Evil: T-Bag is such a Large Ham and ineffectually goofy villain that she comes across as this far more often than scary. One-shot baddies like Count Boris (from series 3) also qualify.
- Literal Genie: Unusually reluctant version in the third series. Holly had made a mistake with the second of her three wishes, and muttered that she wished she hadn't wished that wish. The genie granted that as her third wish and was about to leave when Holly's friend pointed out that, taken literally, it meant that she hadn't wished her second wish and so still had it. The genie regarded this as Loophole Abuse, but grudgingly allowed Holly to put things right by having her second wish again.
- Love Potion: In one episode caused T-Shirt to fall in love with Polly and give her the week's McGuffin.
- MacGuffin: Naturally.
- Minion with an F in Evil: T-Shirt. It helps that he isn't a bad kid at all, and is just under a bit of mind control.
- Mouthy Kid: Debbie and Penny, more than any of the other heroines.
- Mr. Fanservice: T-Shirt, after he'd grown up.
- Nice Girl: Pretty much all the heroines of the series - naturally.
- The Professor: Professor Sparks in Season Four.
- Punny Name/Theme Naming: Guess.
- Who made ya happy? Major Happy!
- Puppy Love: Vaguely hinted at between T-Shirt and Debbie at times - although the instances of disgust tend to contradict this.
- Second Episode Introduction: T-Shirt doesn't appear in the first episode.
- Servile Snarker: T-Shirt when dealing with Tabatha.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Two T-Bags and five heroic girls.
- Take Over the World
- Technobabble: Regarding the Booster Device in Season Four.
- The Theme Park Version: Of the Wild West, Pirate Ships and Ancient Egypt, among others.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Holly was was noticeably taller than T-Shirt which looked a bit odd.
- Tomboyish Ponytail: Penny
- Victorian London: Appeared more than once.
- Villain Song: "Ignorance is Bliss", sung by Tallulah in the first episode.
- World of Ham: Apart from T-Bag herself, this series has no shortage of whimsical guest stars who are just as bombastic and over the top as she is.
- Would Hurt a Child: T-Bag in her more alarming moments. This witch is prepared to have innocent young girls die of exposure to desert sun, freeze to death on London streets, starve to death trapped in tombs... it's just lucky she never truly succeeds.
- Yet Another Christmas Carol: The second Christmas episode.
