First of all it was simply a childrens cartoon about a jolly old pirate and his crew. A bit like Valis and Celtic I guess.
Then the BBC dropped the series. Rumour abounded that it had been dropped because the series was full of sexual double entendres.
People spoke about Master Bates, Seaman Staines and Roger the cabin boy being a plot to undermine the BBC and give the adult viewers a bit of a giggle whilst the stuffy old BBC would know nothing about it..great fun!
However, it's now claimed that there was no Master Bates, Seaman Staines or Roger the cabin boy. Those characters were all the figment of someone's fertile imagination which eventually led to the suing of a newspaper for defamation. There were no sexual overtones in Captain Pugwash!
Well, so the cartoon makers claimed.
However, a quick visit to this site has produced a sound clip that, IMHO, does go someway towards proving that Pugwash may indeed have been not quite so innocent.http://www.ulrp.com/radiotv/audio/pugwash2.wav
What do you think? http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/pugwash.htm
Englishman.