About Me
Sooty is a British puppet and children's book and TV character popular in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. The children's TV show which bears the same name and has featured the character since the 1950s was, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the longest-running children's programme in the UK.Sooty was originally devised by Harry Corbett (nephew of fish and chip shop chain owner Harry Ramsden), who bought the puppet as a present for his son, Matthew Corbett, 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 BBC TV from 1952. The original bear was completely yellow, and Harry covered his ears and nose with soot so that he would show up better on black and white television - hence the puppet's name. He would later be joined by other puppet characters Sweep (a dog which communicated by squeak noises), Soo (a panda), Kipper (a cat), Butch (another dog who occasionally played the part of a villain), Ramsbottom (a snake), 'Enry the Robot (a robot), Cousin Scampi (another bear) and Miki (another cat - this time, novelly, Brazilian). Following Harry Corbett's retirement, Sooty was operated by his son Matthew, and enjoyed a new wave of popularity.Sooty's personality fluctuated between kindness, cheekiness, and downright naughtiness, very often misinterpreting things said or suggested by Harry, Matthew or Soo (possibly intentionally). He played the xylophone and kept a wand with which he performed magic. This was accompanied by the catchphrase "Izzy wizzy, let's get busy!" His water pistol also became an icon - Matthew usually on the end of a soaking, although even royalty have fallen foul of the water! Matthew carried on Harry's tradition of ending every show with the line "Bye bye everybody, bye bye", and in Matthew's final ever episode, his final scene was a collection of him saying the immortal words from the preceding years.In the late nineties, Matthew Corbett retired, marking the end of the series "Sooty and Co." (Based around the idea of the Sooty gang running a shop that "sells almost everything") and essentially gifted Sooty to then co-star Richard Cadell, who presented the show through another three series, at first under the name "Sooty Heights", then under the name, "Sooty". He was joined in these by a series of female co-hosts, starting with Lianna Bridges who worked in "Sooty and Co." in the same period he did.Taken from www.wikipedia.org
