We’re now entering the world of children’s TV puppet characters. These have existed since before television. As some of the great commenters on this blog recall, there was Archie Andrews on the radio way back in the 1940s/50s. Andrews was a ventriloquist’s dummy and had his own series, Educating Archie. Following him there was Muffin the Mule and a plethora of other puppet series and characters, including the might Magic Roundabout. But Basil Brush was one of the towering figures of children’s entertainment. I’m sure there are theses to be written about him and his relation to the British class system. Brush appeared, nattily attired, in aristocratic tweeds, but was mischievously anarchistic towards his co-presenters. His shows were co-hosted by another human, such as Rodney Bewes of Likely Lads fame, who would then have to endure Brush’s jokes and wisecracking. The co-host would be formally addressed as Mr, so that Rodney Bewes was called by Brush ‘Mr Rodney’. At one point, the unfortunate person would have to read a story, during which Brush would interrupt with more jokes and wisecracks. They would then struggle to continue, with Brush urging them with cries of ‘Yes, yes, Mr Rodney’ or whoever, but still interrupt. This carried on until the poor soul was almost reduced to a wreck. I remember a sequence in which Bewes was supposed to be reading a science fiction story. One of the characters was called Zip Fastener, whose name was answered by Brush saying, ‘There are no flies on him.’ I think there may also have been a puppet dog. When this creature tried to get its voice heard, it was often answered by Brush telling it to shut its bone chute. After making a particularly good joke, Brush would cry, ‘Boom! Boom!’ and bang his head against his human co-host’s stomach. I’ve no doubt that a quick search on Google will turn up the name of Brush’s creator and puppeteer, but for a very long time he refused to be credited. This is because he wanted Brush to be character in his own right. He succeeded splendidly. And when Brush was travelling, such as for a stage appearance, he was carried in his own special box.
His creator died a few decades ago, and Brush had been retired like the other puppet characters before him. But his popularity was so great that he was revived for a new generation of children. This time his companions included a repentant fox hound. I think he’s still going. Quickly looking through YouTube I found he’s done music videos, as well as appeared on the satirical comedy, The Last Leg, commenting on the election of Donald Trump. And there certainly have been DVDs of the new series.
Here’s the video of his jokes about Trump from The Last Leg’s channel on YouTube.
Bob Monkhouse is, in my opinion, one of the very great figures of late 20th century and early 21st century British comedy. He was not just a comedian, but also game show compering some of the nation’s favourite shows. I can remember him from the early or mid ’70s compering The Golden Shot, for those that can remember that far back. The contestants had to give instructions to blindfolded marksman, Bernie the Bolt to get him to aim a crossbow at a target. If he got it, they won the prize money. I can still hear the words, ‘Up a bit, left a bit…’ and so on. I don’t know if Monkhouse took over from someone else, but there are clips of it on YouTube with a Black presenter with a broad Yorkshire accent. Later on, in the 1980s he presented Family Fortunes. He was asked in one interview what the worse moment from the show was. He replied that it was when one contestant kept replying to each question, ‘Christmas turkey?’ This led to exchanges like ‘What item would you take to the beach on holiday?’ ‘A Christmas turkey’. ‘Interesting answer. We’ll see. Our survey said. -‘ and then the buzzer to indicate that the people surveyed definitely had not replied that they would take a Christmas turkey to the beach’. Monkhouse asked the poor fellow afterwards what happened. He said that he didn’t know, his mind just went blank. In the ’90s or early years of this century he started to come back after a period when he was off camera. I think this followed an appearance on Have I Got News For You, where he displayed his wit. Actually, I think he had scriptwriters with him handing him gags, or perhaps I’m confusing him with another comedian and entertainer whose career was revived by the show.
Monkhouse began his career away from the camera, writing jokes for other comedians and children’s comics. In an interview with the popular science magazine, Focus, he recalled how he nearly created Star Trek. He had been a science fiction fan, and so had an idea about a spaceship, called ‘Enterprise’, whose captain was a Scotsman called Kirk. Ah, that would have been interesting. He also gave praise to the other comedians he believed deserved it for their skill. One on series about various TV comedians, he described Jimmy Carr as ‘the comedians’ comedian’. But that phrase could also easily describe him. He was acutely interested in other comedians and the craft of comedy itself. In the 1980s he had his own show at about 7.30 in the evening, in which he interviewed comedians he admired from Britain and America. One of them, if I recall rightly, was our own Les Dawson. His house was also full of old film and clips of past comedians. He died of prostate cancer a few years. After his death one of the TV channels broadcast his farewell show, with commenters from other comedians. They said they didn’t realise how terribly ill Monkhouse was at the time, and that he was saying ‘goodbye’ to them. Another great comedian lost to us.
Rod Hull and Emu – another brilliant comedy act taken from us by the Grim Reaper. Hull said he was inspired to create Emu while watching a nature programme in New Zealand. This may have shown the country’s national bird, the Kiwi, another flightless bird rooting around on the forest floor. Or it may have shown Australia’s great flightless bird, the emu. Either way, the bird inspired Hull to create this avian monster of children’s television. It was the most terrifying puppet not to come out of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, though some cruel individuals may detect a certain resemblance to the villainous Skeksis in the film The Dark Crystal. Whatever its inspiration, Emus temperament was more like the 12-foot carnivorous Terror Birds that lived after the demise of the dinosaurs. Hull and Emu had a variety of children’s programmes. I remember him from E.B.C. 1 – ‘Emu’s Broadcasting Company’ with Billy Dainty on BBC 1, and then he moved over to ITV and Emu’s World. On E.B.C., Hull and Emu attempt to perform pieces from the Bard, complete with Emu wearing an Elizabeth cap. I also remember a recurring segment where Dainty, another great performer in his own right, dressed in Edward strongman long johns, tried to give advice on getting fit. This was introduced by the 20th Jazz song, ‘Keep fit, take exercise, get fit, and you’ll be wise, whatever you do, keep fit’. The music that introduced the Shakespeare segment, I later found out, was the 16th century German Mohrentanz, played on shawms and crumhorns. Emus also did weather forecasts, which were introduced by the jingle, ‘Weather, weather, all together, what’s it going to do? We don’t know, and so let’s ask, weatherman Emu.’ In addition to his own programmes, he also appeared as a guest on others, most notorious on Parkinson.
Emu’s style of comedy was pure, anarchic slapstick, whether he was on his own programmes or a guest on a chat show. These performances usually started off calmly, with Hull talking quietly and the puppet behaving itself on his arm. If they were being interviewed, Emu would act docile, snuggling up to the interviewer to be stroked. ‘There, he likes that’, Hull would say approvingly. Then it would start to go wrong, the beak would curl up in a snarl and before long Hull, his guest star or the interviewer would be savagely attacked by the thing’s beak, all with Hull screaming, ‘No, Emu! No!’ This would often end up with the three struggling on the floor while the set collapsed around them in a heap of overturned furniture. Emu was a force of pure chaos, bringing down televisual order. And hilariously funny. But it wasn’t all laughs. I can remember my grandmother telling me I was not to get like him with the sock puppets I made, as Hull had admitted he couldn’t control it. I don’t know if that was true, or another reworking of the old fear about ventriloquists and their dummies. I think Emu was also like Sherlock Holmes as the artist’s creation its creator would like to kill off and move away from but couldn’t because of the characters’ immense popularity. Hull himself was sadly taken from us in a domestic accident. He fell off his roof trying to fix his TV aerial.
I couldn’t sketch Rod Hull and the monstrous bird without also including his most famous victim, the chat show host Michael Parkinson. Parkinson’s show, simply called Parkinson, was one of the mainstays of British television. Parkinson interviewed a number of great and famous stars, like Oliver Reed and Mohammed Ali. And then he had the misfortune to interview, and get assaulted, by Emu. This incident has gone down as a piece of broadcasting history. It became so notorious that it was included in a skit in Private Eye commemorating Parkinson being given an honorary degree or doctorate from one of the universities. Whenever a celebrity, actor, sportsman or whoever, is awarded one of these honorary qualifications, the Eye prints a piece celebrating it in Latin, with the title ‘The …. Laudation In Full’. The Latin is easily understood, recognisable from the Latin vocabular in English. The Parkinson laudatio mentioned his interview with pugilist Mohammed Ali, before adding ‘assaultam cum Emu, avis horribilis. Ave, Emu, salutamus Emu, laudamus Emu’. Or words to that effect. Parkinson had his revenge a few years later when he appeared on Room 101. Parkinson naturally wanted Emu to be consigned to the room containing everything rubbish and terrible in the world. He was obliged when Emu was brought on in a miniature guillotine. Parkinson naturally threw the switch or pulled out the block, and one of children’s television’s most comically terrifying puppets was beheaded, with Parkinson shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite work out whether this was appropriate or not.
Thanks to everyone who liked the cardboard puppets I made of Ian Duncan Smith and David Cameron to satirise them. It’s great to be appreciated. As I said in an earlier post on Saturday, I was going to have to make a similar cardboard puppet of Theresa May, as the real one seemed to be doing her best to run and hide from the media and the general public. She announced that she wasn’t going to appear on the leader debates. The Beeb decided instead that they’d simply keep an open seat for her. She also made it clear that she would not be talking to the press, or the public except in very carefully stage managed conditions.
Just how far and how fast she runs away from the public is shown in a piece Mike has put up this morning over at Vox Political. Graham Mills, a senior citizen in Dudley, said he was very disappointed with her when he met her campaigning in his street. He’d been cutting his lawn, but she wanted to cut across it to talk to him. He didn’t allow her, because he’d only just cut it. Talking to her, he found her nervous and evasive. She did not give him a clear answer why she was avoiding debating with the other party leaders. She also didn’t answer him properly when he asked her why she was still repeating the lie that Labour would go into coalition with the SNP, when this had been shown to be false. Again, no proper answer. When she did answer, it was simply to give stock Tory answers.
Just how pathetic she is at campaigning publicly is shown in a list produced by Scott Nelson on Twitter. Corbyn has spoken publicly in eleven cities, including my own fair town of Bristol. May has only spoken in four, and these were all private premises. There were two factories, a golf club and a private club.
Needless to say, Laura Kuenssberg, the extremely biased reporter for the Beeb, has been trying to give this some positive spin. She said that May was being content to let Labour stew in its own juice.
Mike’s also posted up some very funny memes of people looking for May, and doctor’s looking for her brain once they’ve found her.
Actually, her reaction shows precisely why the media, the Tories and the Blairites are so afraid of Corbyn. Richard Seymour in his book on the Labour leader, Corbyn: The strange Rebirth of Radical Politics, says that they fear and despise him because he uses old-fashioned methods of campaigning. He does not use focus groups, but puts himself through the gruelling process of actually going to places, standing in front of crowds and speaking to them. And he does actually speak to them. He uses their language, and uses a fully formed argument. He doesn’t use soundbites.
And so the Tories, Blairites and their lackeys, like Laura ‘What’s Impartiality?’ Kuenssberg are desperate to smear the Labour leader. Or simply not report anything substantial he says.
Well, to make up for May’s appearance in public, I have indeed produced a cardboard puppet of her. Here it is.
I’ve put a tab in it, so that the mouth can be worked. Here it is with its mouth closed.
So I’ll be putting this in various posts to fill in for the real Prime Minister, as this ‘strong, confident leader’ does her level best to run away from the public she’s to whom she lies, and which her party is determined to impoverish and exploit.
These are a couple of videos from ITV’s satirical puppet show, Newzoids. The show’s a mixture of puppetry and CGI animation. It was billed as the 21st century’s successor to the classic Spitting Image. They were seriously considering bringing that series back, but the idea was dropped because the series would simply have been too expensive given inflation, lower production expenditure and advertising revenue, and stricter health and safety legislation. For the latter, Fluck and Law, the creators of the puppets used in the series, expressed amazement at the relative disregard they had for proper safety standards when they were using highly toxic and flammable materials.
The puppets used in Newzoids are rather different to those in Spitting Image. They’re less complex, rubber hand puppets and more like solid, wooden figurines moved by sticks. Or at least, that’s the image the animation gives.
The satire, though, is still very sharp. In this sketch, Nigel Farage is shown as a Bernard Manning-style stand up club comedian, railing and sneering about immigrants. The crowd heckles him, reminding him of how false and hypocritical his claims are, and that he’s actually a millionaire banker with a foreign wife.
I found the second sketch below on the SlatUKIP page. It shows the Purple Duce again as an actor, though this time he’s a vaudeville comedian singing a song about how he’s really an ordinary British bloke. All the while, his alter ego is reminding him that he’s actually a millionaire, with a very expensive education, a German wife, and far from being British, he’s actually French Huguenot in ancestry.
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