Sooty - Childrens TV | Jedi's Paradise

Sooty Sooty is a Children’s TV show that began in the 50’s. In July 1948 during a wet and miserable family holiday in Blackpool, an engineer and amateur magician from Bradford, Harry Corbett, bought a teddy bear glove puppet on the North Pier to amuse his children. On Saturday 3 May 1952, Harry and his glove puppet made their first television appearance on 'Talent Night'. They were a great success, but Harry was told to make his teddy bear puppet look different from other toy bears. At first Harry tried making it all black but that didn't look right so then he took some soot from the chimney and blackened just his ears and nose. That looked much better and so Sooty was born. In 1952, on the request of Freda Lingstrom, Harry and Sooty became regulars on 'Saturday Special', a BBC children's television programme. In 1955 Sooty was given his own show, 'The Sooty Show'. In 1957, Sweep, a melancholy dog, was added to the show. Harry decided that he should be 'as thick as a brick' and 'always getting it wrong'. In 1964 Harry Corbett decided that he wanted to introduce a character with a voice. He came up with the idea of a black and white panda called Soo who would be Sooty's girlfriend. At first the BBC said no to the idea, saying that it was 'sex creeping into the programme'. Eventually they relented and allowed her to appear but only on the condition that Sooty and Soo never touched. In 1976 Matthew Corbett took over from his father. On 17 August 1989 Harry Corbett died, aged 71. In 1993 Matthew Corbett signed with Granada Television for a new series called 'Sooty and Co'. In 1996 Sooty was made into a cartoon series. Sooty - With Matthew Corbett