-
It’s a Puppet: The Winner
Countdown: Favourite British Puppets — Part Four (The Winner)It’s time to reveal my favourite of all British puppets.
I was surprised to see how many years some of the others on our countdown had on air. But our number one? He’s been around in some form or another for over 75 years. As recently as 2021, he also came Number One in a Sky TV survey — the childhood TV character of all time. He’s met the King and is part of the Magic Circle.
I am, of course, talking about
1:Sooty
When I was younger, it was Sooty & Co. Sooty the mute bear helps run a shop alongside Sweep, Sue and little cousin Scampy. So all that stuff Geoffrey dealt with? If you’ve watched many of these kids’ TV episodes, you know the score. Authority figure. In this case, Matthew is getting something thrown at him — gunge, custard pie, or a water pistol. Always ending with: “Bye Bye Everyone, Bye Bye.”
This gets points for the “watched with Grandad” factor too. Though I do remember, while I laughed a lot at it, he enjoyed it but once commented: “He’s not a patch on his Dad.”
The Harry Corbett years remained a mystery to me. I remember one of those Sooty prize‑giving machines at Cleethorpes had artwork saying Harry Corbett’s Sooty Show. I liked its vintage look, but it always felt wrong. The Sooty show for me was Matthew.
Then I grew up and mostly forgot about Sooty.
It’s the early 2010s. I’m at Butlins Skegness and there’s a change in line‑up. At the time I’m at least a quarter‑century old and fifteen years out of the target age range (visiting with family and friends — no kids at the time). I finally see Sooty live. I felt like a kid in front of CITV.
The talking head had changed. A bloke named Richard — he was actually pretty good.
But he wasn’t a patch on Matthew.
Yeah, I heard it. I’ll get my coat. I know where the door is.
I’ll catch you in the next one. But for now…
Bye Bye Everybody. Bye Bye.
-
It’s a Puppet part three
Countdown: Favourite British Puppets — Part Three (3–2)
3: Rainbow (1972–1992)This series is very well remembered — largely thanks to its large, anamorphic, moody man‑bear Bungle, who has provided plenty of social‑media memes over the years.
This was a favourite growing up. How do you forget characters like Zippy, George, Bungle and Geoffrey? Writing this blog, which involves doing a bit of research, I now know that Geoffrey wasn’t the original talking‑head authority figure with the boys. But for the sake of this countdown, we’re rating the most famous version of the show. We’re also ignoring the 1994 revival because… I never knew that existed.
I remember the puppet characters getting cross with each other a lot. Usually they were making something (or Geoffrey was doing some DIY). There was always a story and a song from Rod, Jane and Freddy. This template — the human authority figure paired with the puppets — is perfected, in my opinion, by the show in first place on the countdown.
But next, we’re heading to Wimbledon Common.
2: The Wombles (1968–1976)The series is well before my time, but I remember it being repeated. I watched it with Grandad, so it gets those unfair bonus points for nostalgia. Bernard Cribbins (newer readers may know him from Doctor Who) narrated, and in retrospect there’s a fair bit of that posh BBC voice in there.
Do the Wombles get this far in my countdown on the episodes alone? No.
We have to take into account how big The Wombles was — particularly the music. Kids’ songs like The Wombling Song and Remember You’re a Womble. I found them on YouTube when my nephews were young and they absolutely loved them. As did I. There’s an odd feeling to singing along to Remember You’re a Womble, holding back a tear and thinking: here’s something that really worked in our family not once, but twice.
So who is our Number One British Puppet…
Until next time.
-
It’s a Puppet Part 2
Countdown: Favourite British Puppets — Part Two (5–4)
5: Rosie and Jim (1990–2000)In a recurring theme here, I find myself surprised by how long this one ran.
Once again, I watched it with Grandad, so that automatically gives it bonus points. There was also a song that went around the school about Rosie and Jim — and a biscuit tin I’m not going to go into — but it definitely helped this one spring to mind when you think of British puppets.
Researching it now, I find that the storyteller — the person driving the boat — changes as time goes on. But when I watched it, it was a guy named John who talked directly to the camera. Some episodes were as simple as John taking the trash out from his boat.
The puppets Rosie, Jim, and the duck would come to life, have their adventure, and John would be none the wiser.
I was reminded of this show recently on a walk around Lincoln. There’s a themed boat there. I’ve checked — it’s not the original — it’s used for holiday lets. The show is very clearly still embedded in people’s minds.
4: Flower Pot Men (1952–1953)This was one we had on a VHS tape — one of the earliest experiences I remember of our parents sharing something they were nostalgic for. I now read it ran for only 26 quarter‑hour episodes. That formula — magic things coming to life when people aren’t around — it’s all here.
Once the gardener has gone for his tea, the weed calls for the Flower Pot Men to come and play. By “call” I mean it says “weed,” because that’s all the weed says.
Looking at it now, this programme shows its age. There’s a lot of that posh BBC talk‑down language. Doesn’t matter — the Flower Pot Men had that magical formula nailed over 70 years ago.
-
It’s a Puppet
Countdown: Favourite British Puppets — Part One (7–6)There was once a long‑standing tradition in UK kids’ TV: at some point, there’d be a bloke with his hand up a puppet’s rear end. What we were actually watching was a tradition. Puppets have been on TV almost as long as TV has existed. It’s undoubtedly an art form.
The rules for this countdown: The puppets have to be British — apologies to a certain infamous green frog. I promise you’ll get your day here at Retro Reaction in the future.
Let’s get started with number 7.
7: Bodger and Badger (1989–1999)Looking back, I’m surprised this was on the air for so long.
Andy Cunningham plays Simon Bodger. The plot usually involved keeping his pet Badger a secret from most of the adults. When they did see him, they’d shake their heads and put it down to stress or something similar.
During its run, the series changed location a few times — a hotel, a school, even a theme park — while also introducing other characters. In this case, a mouse. That’s something we’ll see again later in the countdown. And yes, there were a lot of mashed potatoes ending up on faces from what I remember.
Then I completely forgot about it until years later.
I can’t remember which comic con I attended in Sheffield, but sat at one of the guest tables was Andy Cunningham (although I admit I only knew him as Bodger) and his puppet Badger. This caused a wave of excited… now fully grown adults.
Why doesn’t this duo appear higher? Because I missed a lot of the episode on the walk home from school — and it’s my totally subjective countdown.
It’s certainly better known than the next on our list.
6: The Riddlers (1989–1998)Once again, I’m surprised at the length this one ran.
Our first entry had the traditional bloke with his hand up a puppet. This one was puppetry. I’m sure it wasn’t quite as popular as Bodger and Badger, but it’s one I watched with my late grandad, which automatically gives it points.
This was over on CITV — the children’s block on ITV that ran 3:30 to 5:15. Missed it? Well, that’s kids’ programmes done until tomorrow. Unless it was a Saturday.
This one centred on two magical creatures — Riddlers — who lived at the bottom of Marjorie’s garden well: Mossop and Tiddlup.
Most episodes involved Mossop misunderstanding something and getting things muddled, and Tiddlup or Marjorie putting it right at the end.
Mossop I can relate.
The next two on our list next time
-
You don’t know what you had until its gone
It’s the early noughties. Very early because I recognised the perfect storm on the shelves as a new release DVD. Yes we had started to move to disk and my PS2 could manage it. Perfect storm was said to have so much detail. A giant leap from VHS. Technically I guess it was. Today we would call it Standard Definition. We had moved from RF cables to Scart Leads. Barry had started to move on. I recall a centre shelving area where the new DVD’s were.
Barry’s had faced an uphill battle in our household and I’m sure among many others. He had put his prices up a bit and we all had so many channels now. Sky digital had launched in 1998. Most of us now had the upgrade. With it Sky Box Office could now offer PPV movies on par with the DVD and video releases and the wait for TV was shorter than it had ever been (at that point).
I walked up to the shelves as usual but there’s no on loan stickers. Not on the games either.
Then in a bittersweet moment came the news.
“We’re closing down, everyone has Sky. The tapes are all a pound each if you want any”
Within the week the shop was gone. I had aspirations of having a VHS wall at Uni because I thought that would be cool..
Spoiler alert it ..wasn’t. We had all moved to disk so fast.
Another of those occasions where my feelings at the time don’t match my feelings now.
I now know I was part of the problem. Despite having no purchasing power as such at the time I had no complaints when we moved onto Sky. Quite the opposite. My friends all had Sky.
An early example of us moving away from the physical experience of going to a shop and choosing a film. Choosing convenient over experience.
Now as someone who has been self employed and in an industry where AI replacement and modernisation is on the cards I appreciate how hard it must have been to keep this small rental shop going well into the PPV era.
I rented a new release last night from sky. The price £9.99, The video shops £4 adjusted for inflation comes to about the same. Convenience won but the price never really changed
An era ended and no one even blinked.
The shop is still unused on the high street. Perhaps itching for its own legacy sequel.
-
Casper (1995) — Heavy Themes
Revisiting these 90s films, there are some that are considered classics but didn’t do much for me at the time. Then there are films like Casper. When it came out, I was already at the upper end of its target age range — especially by the time it reached the video store.
Full disclosure: I’m putting this one down as a VHS rental, but we were entering the era of Sky TV, and for the life of me I can’t remember whether this came from Barry’s shelves or from Sky. Possibly both. I digress partly because memories aren’t always clear. The Eleventh Doctor once said, “Everything has to end sometime, otherwise nothing would ever get started.” Another Barry’s memory springs to mind — but that can wait until next time.
At the time, I’d never have admitted I had a soft spot for this film. It appeared in these blogs during the original Spaceman run, and I made the dig about Casper dressing Kat as his mother. We — well, judging by the reader numbers, I — had a lot of fun taking the plot out of context.
Lonely teenager Kat (Christina Ricci) and grieving dad Dr. James Harvey (Bill Pullman) move into a haunted house to study/exorcise the ghosts living there.
What really stood out to me was how Ricci plays Kat. This isn’t like her more famous 90s role as Wednesday. It’s not even comparable to other heroes of those 80s/90s family films like Lydia in Beetlejuice. Those characters are outcasts largely by choice. Kat wants to be normal. She has a tough exterior, but she’s also grieving her mother. The character carries this unmistakable sadness.
In predictable 90s‑kids‑film fashion, Kat befriends Casper the Friendly Ghost, and in the finale both she and Dr. Harvey find closure. Dr. Harvey decides to turn his attention to his living daughter rather than living in grief for his wife — with his wife’s blessing. That moment!
What we really have here is a kids’ film that manages to deal with some heavy themes while still being a lot of fun. It features the first CGI main character, yet somehow still has one foot in the kids’ movies that came before it — particularly the 80s and early‑90s Ghostbusters and Addams Family. There’s even a Ghostbusters callback that I really enjoyed. Cameos weren’t common then. Or I hadn’t noticed.
Time to take the rental back, and I’ll share my last Barry’s memory next time. Of course, it’s not the only time we’ll go there. Time is not linear, after all. As I take the tape back, I glance behind me at the row of VHS behind the family films — where a full shelf is dedicated to a very scary‑looking monster wearing a hat and knives for fingers.
Barry can’t rent me those. But our friends down the road have Sky Movies.
Until next time.
-
Retro Reaction: Dumb and Dumber (1994)
There was another comedy force of the nineties. Decades before being Dr Robotnik (you knew I’d get a Sonic reference in there), Jim Carrey was undoubtedly on a roll. He was the Pet Detective, The Mask, and The Cable Guy, to name a few. It seemed like there wasn’t a month that went by without a Jim Carrey comedy on the shelves at Barry’s.
My brother loved these — owning a good few on video, which meant repeat viewings.
Confession time: I often found these movies a bit too much. I know, sourpuss, right? It’s not like I don’t like slapstick comedy. Rowan Atkinson’s Mr Bean and Rik Mayall (Drop Dead Fred, The Young Ones) were already firm favourites. But until Dumb and Dumber, the rubber‑faced Carrey didn’t 100% connect for me. My favorite Carrey movie is Man on the Moon, and I’m sure we’ll visit that one another time here at Reaction.
Back to Dumb and Dumber. My brother will still quote this one. I have complex feelings about it — not because of the quality of the film. This is a good one that balances slapstick with a good heart. It’s a road‑trip comedy that sees Harry (Jim Carrey) and Lloyd (Jeff Daniels) travel across the country to return a briefcase to Mary (Lauren Holly). The suitcase is full of random money, Harry and Lloyd are in danger all the way through but don’t really realise it. Later, they both try to impress Mary, which leads to its own set of routines.
The reason I have complex feelings is simple: I’ve seen it too many times. After the video rental, this one came onto Sky Movies. We recorded it onto VHS and, on “movie nights” when my brother was choosing, it was often a Jim Carrey movie (or later Something About Mary). More often than not, it was this one.
Which brings me to my favourite memory of this movie.
I took the VHS to my grandad’s — I often did for the bigger ones. My Great Aunt turned up halfway through, just in time to see the part where Harry puts laxative in Lloyd’s drink. If you’ve seen it, you know.
I had, to that point, never seen my Aunt cry with laughter. She couldn’t get her breath, and within seconds the whole room was laughing — partly at the film, but also at her reaction to it. This moment alone puts Dumb and Dumber up there.
Next time: it’s 1995, and we’re looking at Casper the Friendly Ghost.
-
Mrs Doubtfire: The Rental Rush
It’s hard to understate how big this film was back in the mid‑90s. Released in 1993, but again remember that longer wait period we had back then — there really was a wait if you didn’t get around to seeing it in the cinema.
Why I remember the hype so well is because it was the only time I ever saw a whole shelf at Barry’s filled with copies of the same movie. Even with those extra copies, for an entire week every single one had the red on loan sticker.
When we looked at Hook, I mentioned how much of a force Robin Williams was during this era. This is the last time he appears in this 90s film set — I’m sure not the last time we’ll return to his work in Reaction. But let’s deal with the elephant in the room. Even now, I still find it hard to understand how a guy who made me laugh so much — the only one to cause Barry’s to sell out for a week straight — could have been so unhappy privately. Thank you for the laughs
My brother and I still occasionally quote Mrs Doubtfire today, 30 years later.
The premise: fun‑loving father Daniel (Williams) is going through a messy divorce with his wife Miranda (Sally Field). To gain access to his children, he disguises himself as nanny Mrs Doubtfire.
Yes, elements of the film are now seen as dated. Daniel does, well, near‑on stalk Miranda. But rewatching it, it’s still funny and not malicious in the way some comedies can be. The humour comes from seeing Daniel try to take on the lone‑parent role while simultaneously sabotaging Miranda’s next relationship.
Miranda doesn’t really come off as “the baddie” in this one, but you’re still rooting for Daniel throughout the movie.
One thing that really stands out is that, unlike most films like this — particularly of the time — Miranda and Daniel don’t reunite at the end. Here in the UK, around 42% of people are divorced. Having a family film deal with that back in 1993 was very forward‑thinking.
Next time we’re sticking with comedy, with Dumb and Dumber
-
Jurassic Park I appreciate you now
Its the mid‑1990s. Another video rental from Barry. Jurassic Park was a 1993 movie, but there was that half‑year wait for rental. Then a few weeks before it hit the shelves of the local video shops—basically anyone who wasn’t called Blockbuster.
This film came with hype. It was “the adventure 65 million years in the making.” I remember reading that this film would make you believe that living dinosaurs were real.
This is a movie I’m split on. I know the consensus is that it’s a classic. But I think I saw this film at the wrong time. Perhaps my attention span wasn’t there yet. The first dinosaur doesn’t appear until about 20 minutes into the film.
As an adult I know that this is because the first half of the film sets up the action. At its core it’s a character‑driven film. Today I appreciate this. The film’s narrative on the dangers of messing around with nature couldn’t be more relevant. And the effects still hold up. In so many ways this was ahead of its time.
In the 1990s… it just took too long to get going. It was too “talkie”.
Did this stop us collecting the toys? Nope. It didn’t stop us buying the video game or watching the sequels that followed either. But at the time I found it slow.
A few years later the film came to BBC. It was a big premiere. I remember my grandad telling me they had “watched the dinosaurs last night and wasn’t it slow. It never seemed to get going.”
First impressions die hard. This was a film that I was over‑hyped for but too young to appreciate.
Next time we’re still in 1993. It’s a big family film and Robin Williams is back on our screens. You could argue it’s the biggest film of that year… But Barry is all out! See you on the next one.
-
Hook (1991) – Uncomfortably Familiar
“Have to fly. Have to fight. Have to crow. Have to save Maggie. Have to save Jack. Hook is back.”
Back to another 1990s video rental from Barry’s — this time, Hook. Adventure movies like this were the kind I really used to get into. This one, however, I remember confusing me back in the 90s. Hook was marketed as a sequel to Peter Pan. Everyone knows the story of Peter Pan, right? Right?
Well, it’s 1991 — or to be honest, a little after that, thanks to rental delays — and I’m under ten. It concerns me that I haven’t seen Peter Pan before watching Hook. This is made worse by the way the first half of the film has so many characters urging Peter (Robin Williams, practically the face of family movies in the 90s) to remember.
A little later I managed to track down the Disney cartoon, and it still didn’t seem like a sequel as such. It looked and sounded a lot different. Adult me knows this is because Peter Pan was a 1953 Disney cartoon, and Hook was a 1991 blockbuster released by Sony Pictures. But to a kid, it didn’t make sense. I sort of wish someone had clarified that it’s a sequel to the Peter Pan book — but honestly, I’m not sure anyone in our house knew that.
The concept: what if Peter Pan grew up? Spielberg has mentioned the issues with the film’s second half. They’re there, definitely. They’re undeniable. There are parts where it looks like a theme park.
But this is Retro Reaction, not a movie critic blog. It’s always been about how these movies make you feel. That first half of Hook, with its strong message about Peter forgetting what childhood is like — about him being busy with life and missing out — that’s where the story is so strong for me.
I wonder if, for younger watchers, this falls into the same category as Home Alone. They’re treading water, waiting for Peter to remember and for Pan’s return to save the day in the final act. I don’t blame them. I was once in that category. For me now, though, it’s all about the emotional journey he takes to get there. Helped a little by the iconic John Williams soundtrack again. As an adult, it can strike an uncomfortably familiar note.
We’re still in the 90s and still renting from Barry, so there will be more Robin Williams in the weeks to come. But next time… we’ve got some dinosaurs.
