The Teletubbies, the cult brightly-coloured children's TV characters famous for their cheery "Eh-Oh" greeting and a fierce debate over whether one was gay, staged a comeback on Thursday.

Tinky Winky, Laa-Laa, Dipsy and Po — whose antics entertained a generation of infants, from the late 1990s — are embarking on a national tour and releasing a song they hope will be a hit a decade after their heyday.

Launched in 1997 and running to 365 episodes on the BBC, the programme gained a cult following among students and was shown in more than 120 countries around the world.

The show featured the plump red, yellow, green and purple figures in a never-ending series of adventures, from making Tubbie-toast and losing a ball to dealing with an exploding Tubbie-custard machine.

Plot lines were often achingly slow, although perfectly pitched to an infant audience. Sometimes they simply frolicked or jumped in puddles in the bizarre hilly landscape populated by grazing rabbits around their dome-shaped home.

Every so often a bizarre windmill would emerge from behind a hill, presaging a video to appear on one of the Teletubbies screen-shaped tummies, via their head-top antennae.

While bright-red Po played on his scooter and lime-green Laa Laa occasionally lost her ball, one of the most talked-about issues was whether purple Tinky Winky was gay — fueled by his ostentatious carrying of a handbag.

The foursome even released a single, 'Teletubbies Say Eh-Oh', which became a hit and sold more than a million copies.