11 July: Andy Pandy

On this date in 1950, Andy Pandy first appeared on the BBC. 10 things you might not know about this programme:

1. Andy Pandy was created by Freda Lingstrom and Maria Bird and was first broadcast as part of “Watch With Mother” before getting his own series.

2. He was a marionette style puppet who lived in a picnic basket. The puppet was made by an old man in Bird and Lingstrom’s village (Westerham, Kent) and the person pulling the strings was Audrey Atterbury.

3. Andy never spoke. The show was narrated by Maria Bird.

4. There wasn’t much of a plot to speak of, just Andy doing random things. The narrator would encourage viewers to join in with some of his movements, such as swinging arms as if you were on a swing.

5. Andy was later joined by two friends: Teddy (a Teddy bear) and Looby Loo (a rag doll). Looby Loo would only come to life when Andy and Teddy weren’t around. Then she would sing and dance and clean their house. While, like the others, she never spoke, she would sing her own signature song, "Here we go Looby Loo".

6. Every episode would end with the song, "Time to go home / Time to go home / Andy is waving goodbye." The songs were sung by Janet Ferber.

7. Andy wears a Blue and White striped all-in-one romper suit, ruffle collar and hat, and his strings were always very visible.

8. The first episodes were broadcast live, until someone at the BBC realised that if they were recorded, they could be shown over and over again until the film wore out. Which it did, and some episodes were re-recorded in colour in the 1970s.

9. Initially, it was shown in the afternoon between 3:45 pm and 4:00 pm at the end of the women’s programme For Women. In the 1960s Watch with Mother was scheduled at lunch time.

10. In 2002 the BBC produced a revival of 52 episodes with the use of stop-motion animation instead of string puppets. This aired on Cbeebies and was voiced by Tom Conti.

Character birthday

Spectre, aka Katie Bosley, a member of the crime fighting team, the Chain Gang. Katie, a teenage girl, lived next door to Gary Winchcombe (Chain) and was befriended by them. She is a genetic variant who is able to turn intangible and walk through walls. Her power was discovered when she made physical contact with Two Tone, whose power is absorbing other people’s powers. At the time, the Chain Gang were trying to figure out what Two Tone’s power was and how it worked, and her sudden ability to phase through walls confused their theories. Katie, on discovering her neighbours were the Chain Gang, was keen to get involved with their work and managed to stow away on their plane when they flew to Galorvia to rescue Gloria. Katie’s power manifested when cornered by an enemy with an axe; she phased through the wall to escape. Once the rest of the team realised what had happened, she was allowed to join the team. She initially used the name Silver Mist, but changed it to Spectre as she felt this name better represented what she could do. She appears in From a Jack to a King.

From A Jack To A King

A royal palace is burning. The King and Queen are dead. The only hopes for an ancient dynasty flee to England for their lives.

A boy runs from his mother and the people he believes want to mutilate him, and vanishes, seemingly forever.

Gary Winchcombe, the experimental "super-cop" pursues a notorious gang of bank robbers, and starts to discover that his friends and neighbours have secrets he never could have imagined.

Tod Reynard wants to turn his life around. When he meets and falls in love with the beautiful Jade, he knows she might just be the one to help him change his life for the better. He cannot possibly know just how much.

When Jade's twin sister Gloria is kidnapped, old rivalries must be put aside and new associations formed in order to save Gloria's life and restore the rightful order of things.

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