YMMV / Postman Pat

• Accidental Nightmare Fuel: A common complaint about The Movie is the evil Pat and Jess robots are too scary for toddlers, Postman Pat's target audience.
• Awesome Music:
  • The theme song never gets old.
  • "What's in his Bag?", the catchy ending theme for Seasons 3 - 5.
  • The songs from the first season. Examples include:
    • Handyman Song
    • Jess the Cat
    • Mobile Shop
    • Farmers Song
    • Miss Rebecca Hubbard (this song was never played with lyrics in the series)
    • Reverend Timms
    • Traveling Music. This song is so iconic, that one fan made a remix in the style of the first two seasons of Thomas & Friends, using the same instruments that Mike O'Donnell and Junior Campbell would have.
• Fanon: There is spectulation among fans that Granny Dryden didn't appear in the Cosgrove Hall seasons because she passed away of old age.
• Heartwarming Moments: Aside from the theme tune, there are a few songs used in the episodes themselves, such as Looking at Life.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The episode "Pat's Rainy Day" has Pat joke about swapping his van for a helicopter. He later uses a helicopter in Special Delivery Service.
• Memetic Mutation: Postman Pat's Banging Day Out. A crude overdub video with gratuitous swearing, mild violence, and moderate sex references. Probably one of the earliest forms of YouTube Poop to hit The Internet.
  • "He who leads shalt learn!"
  • Postman Pat's Banging Day Out ended up inspiring a cottage industry whose sole purpose is editing and overdubbing episodes of Postman Pat to insert profanity and risque references. Such examples include Boro Pat and Pissed Off Postman Pat, as well as a selection of Pat videos made by the user Rude Guy, all of which have very similar premises.
    • Other dubs such as Teeside Tintin utilize the same edits but with a change in source material.
  • For some reason, Pat, especially his flying detached head, got a memetic status in Russian YouTube Poop as a bringer of doom: if his head ever appears onscreen to his Theme Tune, there will be a massive explosion. Or not, and it will be lampshaded.
• Moe:
  • If there's anything to watch the series for, it's for Pat's adorable cat Jess, who is as loyal and loving to his human as a cat can be.
  • Of the children, Katy Pottage, Lucy Selby, and Nikhil Bains are the most cutesy, being innocent little girls and a sweet baby.
• Older Than the Demographic: Pat Clifton himself is a 35-year-old protagonist of a show aimed at preschoolers.
• Only the Creator Does It Right: While the later revivals are not without their fans, most agree that the 1980s and 1990s episodes by John Cunliffe and Woodland Animations are the most iconic.
• Retroactive Recognition: A production example. When the show was revived for a second season in 1996, one member of the production team was a then-UK based Jeff "Swampy" Marsh.
• Seasonal Rot: Seasons 3-5 are not as well-regarded as the first two for a variety of reasons. Common complaints include the faster-paced animation provided by Cosgrove Hall, focusing too much on Mr. Pringle and his class, generic plots, elimination of several characters such as Miss Hubbard, Granny Dryden, Major Forbes, and Sam Waldron, plot holes (for example, one episode has Ajay restoring an old Rolls-Royce, when it's been established Ted Glen, who was in said episode, could have done it easily, as Ajay's specialty is steam locomotives), how tired Ken Barrie sounds, and disrespecting the original seasons (such as turning PAT 2, the post bus, into a school bus). Despite this, these seasons are still better-regarded than Special Delivery Service, which follows a very strict formula involving Pat having to drop everything he's doing in Greendale to pick up a special delivery in Pencaster, have trouble with said delivery, and have to find a solution to the problem. He also uses a variety of vehicles instead of PAT 1, including a truck, an ATV, a boat, a helicopter, and even a VTOL-capable plane. Most fans view the SDS seasons as existing solely to sell toys.
• So Bad, It's Good: The Movie.
• Special Effect Failure: In "Postman Pat's Tractor Express", during a close-up shot of Pat on Miss Hubbard's tractor, it's painfully obvious it was shot in live-action with a stagehand shaking the tractor offscreen.
• Spiritual Successor: Largely considered to be this to the BBC's 1960's kids program Camberwick Green, which had also focused on a simple village life of friendly people working their day-to-day jobs (and even focused on a postman in their first episode, to boot).
• Sweet Dreams Fuel: The Woodland Animations episodes are regarded as very relaxing with simple plots that focus on everyday problems, not to mention long shots of Pat simply driving through the countryside, and the relative lack of music. And when there is music, it's usually either little incidental ditties or very nice songs like the above-mentioned "Looking at Life", all sung by Ken Barrie, no less. The Cosgrove Hall episodes amp up the energy and wacky plots, though they mostly remain good-natured as well.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Most people who watched the original as children (or even as parents) are horrified by Special Delivery Service, with the helicopters, the train, and the absence of Granny Dryden and Miss Hubbard.
  • And then there's the movie, which had parents wound up because of the evil Pat and Jess robots.
• Toy Ship: Pat's son Julian and his friend Meera, because the show itself features mild hints of Puppy Love between them in the newer series. It helps that the two were pen pals before meeting each other in person, alongside Meera and her family moving to Greendale after the Greendale Rocket's episode.
• Unintentional Period Piece: In Postman Pat's Rainy Day, the Thompsons are unable to get help with the landslide due to the phonelines being down and having to use Bill Thompson's remote control plane to send an SOS, if the episode had taken place at any point after the late 90s, there would've nothing preventing them from using a mobile phone to get help.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Jess is a tomcat.
• The Woobie: Katie's doll, Sara Ann. Katie loses her in the pilot, and it's up to Pat to find her.

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