Sebastian Squire

Trivia

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In Sooty's late-sixties' and early-seventies' shows, a musical act featured was The Sooty Braden Showband. This featured Sooty and friends on various instruments playing alongside Musical Director Alan Braden and his band. The Sooty Show would close with a rousing performance from the band.

Richard Cadell actually made a guest appearance in The Sooty Show Christmas Special in the 1980s - 20 years before taking over from Matthew Corbett.

A large number of shows ended with or contained a song relating in some way to the episode, although over the years a number of songs were repeated and quickly became classics - the most famous being "Battle Of The Drums" and "Home Is Where The Heart Is".

Twice during the Sooty Heights era, ITV2 declared Christmas Day as being "Sooty Day" - and dedicated its schedule to episodes and documentaries about Sooty.

Sooty appeared on Kellogg's "Puffa Sugar Stars" cereal in the 1960s, then on "Puffa Puffa Rice" cereal starting in 1973.

The Doug Anthony Allstars wrote a song describing Sooty as a skinhead.

There used to be an extremely popular 'World of Sooty' museum in Shipley, West Yorkshire open in the early 1990s, but this was later replaced by an animatronic cat exhibition, which was in turn replaced by a marketing agency. There were also Sooty related attractions at the now defunct Granada Studios Tour in Manchester.

The original Sooty now resides in the northern village of Brancepeth near Durham City, with owner Charlotte Lonsdale also possessing a more recent version of the famous puppet.

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From Wikipedia

Sooty is a British puppet character popular in the United Kingdom, Australia and other countries.

He was originally devised and operated by Harry Corbett (nephew of fish and chip shop chain owner Harry Ramsden who bought Sooty from a stall when he was on holiday in Blackpool in 1948. Sooty, a small yellow bear with black ears, who was mute to the audience but could communicate with Harry by apparently whispering in his ear, was featured on British TV from 1952. He would later be joined by other puppet characters Sweep (a dog), Soo (a panda bear), Kipper (a cat), Butch (another dog), Ramsbottom (a snake), and Cousin Scampy (another bear). Following Harry Corbett's retirement, Sooty was operated by his son, Matthew Corbett, and enjoyed a new wave of popularity.

Television appearances

First appears on the BBC's Talent Night (1952)

Sooty and Harry become regulars on the BBC children's show Saturday Special (1952-1955)

The Sooty Show is aired on the BBC (1955-1967)

In 1957 Sooty is joined by Sweep, and in 1964 Soo is introduced as Sooty's girlfriend

The Sooty Show is cancelled by the BBC, changes to Thames Television and is aired on ITV (1967-1992)

In 1976 Matthew takes over his father's role

Sooty and Co. is aired on ITV with Granada Television (1993-1998)

In 1998 Matthew retired and hand-picked Richard Cadell to replace him

Sooty, a animated cartoon series is aired (1996-?)

Sooty Heights was aired on ITV (2000-2001)

Retrieved from "Wikipedia"

See Sooty's Travels