3.12 The Opposites Badge
This set of badges often have the Squirrels heading off on a quick whirlwind adventure to find examples to demonstrate a concept. Alongside The Opposites Badge, you have The Future Badge and The History Badge. The Organising Badge and The Water Badge are also examples of this format from series 2.
Badge Design
A circle yin yang Duggee.
Episode Summary
Opening Squirrel
Roly digging in the garden.
Start
Roly, Betty, Tag and Happy are chasing a football. Norrie is watching a butterfly.
Set-Up
Roly wants to watch nature too so Norrie tells him to be quiet but Roly is the opposite of quiet and the butterfly flies away. Roly doesn’t know what opposite means and Norrie struggles to explain. Duggee can help, he has his Opposites Badge.
Story
An opposite is something that is exactly different to something else. He takes a clean potato from the ground and cleans it. Clean is the opposite of dirty. Norrie also points out to Roly that the opposite od loud is quiet.
The Squirrels find some more examples:
- Happy drinks a glass of water. Full is the opposite of empty.
- Tag opens the door to the delivery chipmunk and closes it again. Open is the opposite of closed.
- Roly slides down a slide. The top is the opposite of the bottom.
- Norrie is skipping. Over is the opposite of under.
- Betty races tortoise. The start is the opposite of the finish.
The Squirrels love opposites. From here things begin to get a little more abstract as the Squirrels use their imaginations.
- Left is the opposite of right. Duggee and the Squirrels flip horizontally.
- Down is the opposite of up. They flip vertically and find themselves standing on the ceiling.
- Norrie reasons that up is now the opposite of down and they fall back to the ground while the clubhouse remains upside down.
- The floor/ceiling is bouncy because hard is the opposite of soft.
- Small is the opposite of big and the Squirrels grow to the size of Duggee.
- Big is now little and Duggee shrinks. Happy gives him a Duggee hug.
They run outside to find more opposites. Duggee hides behind Happy’s leg as a giraffe bounds in.
- Long is short. The giraffe’s legs and neck shrink.
- Short is long. Caterpillar’s legs grow.
- Fast is slow. The mice drive past in their supercar which slows right down and so does their voices.
- Slow is fast. Tortoise’s feet turn to wheels and he speeds off.
- Cold is hot. The sun comes out and melts Penguin’s snowman.
- Light is heavy. The clouds fall from the sky.
- Heavy is light. Ethel the elephant rises into the air.
- Strong is weak. The bear drops his weights.
- Weak is strong. A flea picks them both up.
- Young is old. The Squirrels all turn into what they imagine old to be.
- Old is young. Duggee turns into a puppy.
- Wet is dry. The duck’s pond dries up.
- Dry is wet. Water is dumped on a camel in the desert.
- Forwards is backwards. Birds start flying backwards.
- The day is night. It gets dark.
- Off is on. It gets light again.
Chaos ensues until baby Duggee calls a stop and things get back to normal.
Close and Credits
The Squirrels have earned their Opposites Badge.
Ethel floats overhead and Duggee chases after her.
Outfits
Duggee and the Squirrels only change outfit when they change age. Duggee looks exactly like Duggley when he is a puppy. The Squirrels all have old person outfits:
- Norrie wears glasses, neat tweed and yellow cardigan.
- Tag has a long yellow overcoat and a shopping trolley. He also has a grey goatee, bushy eyebrows and hair growing out of his ears.
- Roly looks exactly like his granddad as he proclaims he is 42 and 3/4.
- Betty has grey curly hair, blue trousers and a daisy brooch.
- Happy has high waisted trousers, a walking cane, a long grey beard and beret.
Get Your Opposites Badge
What opposites can you think of?