History Series / BigBag

* ArtImitatesArt: "The Birthday Bash" opens with Chelli painting portraits of Bag, including two that are based off the "Art/MonaLisa" (with Bag doing a MonaLisaSmile) and "American Gothic" (with Bag and Chelli as the AmericanGothicCouple.)

* ArtImitatesArt: "The Birthday Bash" opens with Chelli painting portraits of Bag, including two that are based off the "Mona Lisa" (with Bag doing a MonaLisaSmile) and "American Gothic" (with Bag and Chelli as the AmericanGothicCouple.)

Let's do something fun today!\\
Big Bag!\\
You can do it!\\
Big Bag!\\
Peek through it!\\
Big Bag!\\
Get into it!\\
Big Bag!\\
Come along, it's time to pretend\\
Make some music, make a friend\\
Loads of laughs from end to end\\
Big Bag!\\
Open wide now!\\
Big Bag!\\
Reach inside now!\\
Big Bag!\\
Gonna love it!\\
Big Bag!\\
Be part of it!\\
Big Bag!
-->-- The show's theme song

Not to be confused with [[BigBad Big]] ''[[BigBad Bad]]''.

Animated segments showcased included "Troubles the Cat," "Koki," "William's Wish Wellingtons," "Slim Pig," "Tobias Totz and his Lion," "Samuel and Nina" (the latter four exclusive to the first season" and "Ace and Avery" (this one exclusive to the second season.)

* PutOnABus: All of the human characters that appeared in the show's first season outside of Molly, including kids Kim and Joey, and adults Trudy, Josie, Martha, Waldo, Bernard and Doctor Furball, were dropped for the second season.

* AmateurFilmMakingPlot: An episode in the second season involved Chelli, Bag and Sofie making their own fantasy movie with a camcorder.

* EatTheCamera: Done at the end of the "One Little Lie" song in the episode of the same name; on Chelli's last "LIEEEEEEE!" his mouth suddenly engulfs the camera and turns the screen completely pitch black.

* FakeInteractivity: A main feature of the show; the characters would encourage kids to play along, and watch the show with their own bag containing [[BreadEggsMilkSquick a pair of socks, a hat, a cardboard tube and two spoons]] and bring them out when cued to do so, often using his or her imagination to find a unique pretend use of the items.

''Big Bag'' was a puppet show, with some animated inserts, produced jointly by Creator/CartoonNetwork and the Children's Television Workshop. It ran on Cartoon Network from June 1996 to September 1998.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/big_bag.png]]

* {{Crossover}}: Elmo from ''Series/SesameStreet'' once visited Chelli and Molly at their store.

** In "The Birthday Blah", it's Sofie's birthday, and Chelli promises to give Sophie the biggest birthday party ever at 5:00. At first, he tries to handle setting up the party by himself, but soon finds out that he needs help from his friends.
** In "The Birthday Bash," it's Chelli's friend Kim's birthday. Chelli accidentally spills paint on Kim's new jeans, and Kim initially uninvites Chelli to her party, but then they apologize and make up by the end.

* OffScreenCrash: Like ''Series/SesameStreet'', this show was fond of doing it at times. One memorable instance was TheTeaser to "Bringing Up Puppy," where Chelli and Bag pretend to play baseball, and Chelli tells the viewers that one good thing about pretend baseball is that you don't have to worry about braeking any windows. Cue the sound of glass breaking off-screen.

*** The rest of the characters get GenreSavvy about this in "Imaginary Treasure." When Waldo says his invention does look like a salad tong, when he says "But it's not!" the other characters join him in saying the line.

----

* SnowballLie: The basic premise of "One Little Lie." After Chelli accidentally breaks an antique music box he was told not to touch until Molly gets back, he lies that Kim took the music box to use as a school science project. But when Kim confronts it, he instead insists he said "gym" instead of Kim, saying that someone took the music box to the gym. Then he changes it again to say that Waldo took it for a "swim," but when Waldo comes in, Chelli ends up telling the truth and learning his lesson, and Waldo repairs the music box.

* StickySituation / MuckingInTheMud: In the Slim Pig episode "Sticky Situation", Dog gets stuck in a mud puddle during a game of fetch. Ironically, he ends up breaking free to continue playing fetch, with Slim as the stick.

* OffScreenCrash: Like ''Series/SesameStreet'', this show was fond of doing it at times. One memorable instance was

* PutOnABus: All of the human characters that appeared in the show's first season outside of Molly, including kids Kim and Joey and adults Trudy, Josie, Martha, Waldo, Bernard and Doctor Furball, were dropped for the second season,

* SnowballLie: The basic premise of "One Little Lie." After Chelli accidentally breaks an antique music box he was told not to touch until Molly gets back, he lies that Kim broke it. But when Kim confronts it, he instead insists he said "gym" instead of Kim, saying that someone took the music box to the gym. Then he changes it again to say that Waldo took it for a "swim," but when Waldo comes in, Chelli ends up telling the truth and learning his lesson, and Waldo repairs the music box.

* TheTeaser: The episodes generally began with a cold open featuring Chelli and Bag. Sometimes it wasn't related to the episode, and other times it usually was, usually involving Chelli and Bag talking about what will be happening in the episode (not unlike the teaser sequences in ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'').

* ADogNamedDog: In this case, a bag named "Bag".

* MediumBlending

The show featured new Muppet characters built by Creator/JimHenson's Muppet Workshop. The main characters were Chelli, a Muppet patchwork dog, and Molly, his human friend. They were assisted by Bag, an actual canvas bag.

The Muppet Wiki has [[http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Big_Bag more information]].

* BirthdayEpisode: In "The Birthday Blah", it's Sophie's birthday, and Chelli promises to give Sophie the biggest birthday party ever at 5:00. At first, he tries to handle setting up the party by himself, but soon finds out that he needs help from his friends.

This show provides examples of:

* ADogNamedDog: In this case, a bag named "Bag".