Michael Bentine's Potty Time

Last updated

Michael Bentine's Potty Time was a British children's show, written by and starring Michael Bentine, and directed and produced by Leon Thau for Thames Television on ITV. It ran from 1973 to 1980. Bentine had introduced The Potties on a BBC show Michael Bentine Time a year earlier. [1] The episodes consisted largely of bearded puppets (called "Potties"), comically re-enacting famous historical situations. The Potties' faces were always obscured by facial hair, with only their noses protruding. They were operated from beneath and had two distinct sizes - approximately two feet (60 cm) and one foot (30 cm) tall. All of the Potty characters were designed by Bentine, who also provided all of their voices. Their operators were from The Barry Smith Theatre of Puppets.

Contents

The title 'Potty Time' is a humorous double entendre also referring to the toilet training of infants - a 'potty' being slang for a child's chamber pot.

In 2001, it was voted into 71st place in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Kids' TV shows poll.

In the 1970s and early 80s it was broadcast in Australia on Channel 7. [2] The series was also broadcast in New Zealand first on South Pacific Television and later on Television One.

Other Media

Several Region 2 DVDs of the three series have been released by Network Releasing.

This was also a title of a comic strip run in Look-in magazine featuring Bentine and the Potties, drawn by Arthur Ranson. [3]

Related Research Articles

<i>Four Feather Falls</i> British television series

Four Feather Falls is a British television programme, the third puppet TV show produced by Gerry Anderson for Granada Television. It was based on an idea by Barry Gray, who also wrote the show's music. The series was the first to use an early version of Anderson's Supermarionation puppetry. Thirty-nine 13-minute episodes were produced, broadcast by Granada from February until November 1960. The setting is the late 19th-century fictional Kansas town of Four Feather Falls, where the hero of the series, Tex Tucker, is a sheriff. The four feathers of the title refers to four magical feathers given to Tex by the Indian chief Kalamakooya as a reward for saving his grandson. One of the feathers allowed Tex's guns to swivel and fire without being touched whenever he was in danger, two conferred the power of speech on Tex's horse and dog, and the fourth feather could summon Kalamakooya.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Bentine</span> British comedian

Michael Bentine, was a British comedian, comic actor and founding member of the Goons. His father was a Peruvian Briton.

<i>The Goon Show</i> BBC Radio show broadcast from 1951 to 1960

The Goon Show is a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September 1951, was titled Crazy People; subsequent series had the title The Goon Show.

<i>Absolutely Fabulous</i> British television series

Absolutely Fabulous is a British television sitcom based on the French and Saunders sketch, "Modern Mother and Daughter", created by Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. The show was created and written by Saunders, who also stars as one of the main characters with Joanna Lumley and Julia Sawalha.

<i>The Magic Roundabout</i> Childrens television series

The Magic Roundabout is an English-language children's television programme that ran from 1965 to 1977. It used the footage of the French stop motion animation show Le Manège enchanté but with completely different scripts and characters.

<i>Fraggle Rock</i> Childrens television series

Fraggle Rock is a children's musical fantasy comedy puppet television series about interconnected societies of Muppet creatures, created by Jim Henson.

<i>Darkwing Duck</i> American animated television series (1991–1992)

Darkwing Duck is an American animated superhero comedy television series produced by Disney Television Animation that first ran from 1991 to 1992 on both the syndicated programming block The Disney Afternoon and Saturday mornings on ABC. A total of ninety-one episodes were aired. It features the adventures of Darkwing Duck, who is the superheroic alter-ego of ordinary suburban duck Drake Mallard.

<i>Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons</i> 1960s British television series

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often shortened to Captain Scarlet, is a British science fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company Century 21 Productions for distributor ITC Entertainment. Running to thirty-two 25-minute episodes, it was first broadcast on ITV regional franchises between 1967 and 1968 and has since been transmitted in more than 40 other countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. It is one of several Anderson series that were filmed using a form of electronic marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation" combined with scale model special effects sequences.

<i>The Young Ones</i> (TV series) British sitcom

The Young Ones is a British sitcom written by Rik Mayall, Ben Elton, and Lise Mayer, starring Adrian Edmondson, Mayall, Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan, and Alexei Sayle, and broadcast on BBC Two for two series, first shown in 1982 and 1984. The show focused on the lives of four dissimilar students and their landlord's family on different plots that often included anarchic, offbeat, surreal humour. The show often included slapstick gags, visual humour and surreal jokes sometimes acted out by puppets, with each episode also featuring a notable selection of guest stars and musical numbers from various performers.

The Comic Strip are a group of British comedians who came to prominence in the 1980s. They are known for their television series The Comic Strip Presents..., which was labelled as a pioneering example of the alternative comedy scene. The core members are Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson and Jennifer Saunders, with appearances by Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane, Alexei Sayle and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Basil Brush</span> Fox puppet from British childrens television

Basil Brush is a fictional fox, best known for his appearances on daytime British children's television. He is primarily portrayed by a glove puppet, but has also been depicted in animated cartoon shorts and comic strips. The character has featured on children's television from the 1960s to the present day. He has also appeared in pantomimes across the UK.

<i>Garfield and Friends</i> American animated television series with characters from the Garfield and U.S. Acres comic strips

Garfield and Friends is an American animated television series based on the comic strip Garfield by Jim Davis. The show aired on CBS as part of its Saturday morning children's lineup from September 17, 1988, to December 10, 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">South Pacific Television</span>

South Pacific Television (SPTV) was a television channel in New Zealand, which operated between 1976 and 1980.

<i>Short Attention Span Theater</i> American TV series or program

Short Attention Span Theater is an American clip show in which the hosts presented short segments of stand-up comedy acts and scenes from films airing on HBO and Cinemax. It aired from 1989 until 1994.

Ronnie Le Drew is a Canadian-born British puppeteer who was born in Toronto, Canada. He is best known for playing "Zippy" from the ITV children's show Rainbow since the early 1970s and trained at the Little Angel Theatre, London under John Wright. His association with the Little Angel spans over thirty years as performer, and later as director.

Fully Booked, later retitled FBi, is a British children's television series produced by BBC Scotland and broadcast from 22 April 1995 to 23 September 2000.

<i>Its a Square World</i>

It's a Square World is a British comedy television series starring Michael Bentine and produced by the BBC. It ran from 1960 until 1964, each episode being of 30 minutes duration. The series gained Bentine a BAFTA award in 1962 for Light Entertainment, while a compilation show, screened by the BBC in 1963, won that year's Press Prize at the Rose d'Or Festival in Montreux. The shows were devised and written by Bentine and John Law. Some sketches were released on an LP.

The DJ Kat show was a children's television programme presented by the puppet DJ Kat and his friend Linda de Mol, the sister of Endemol founder John de Mol, which ran from 1 September 1986 to 31 December 1995. The show was first broadcast to Europe on satellite and cable channel Sky Channel and later on Sky One and Sky Europe. The show was aired every weekday morning and afternoon, and throughout its life was home to a particularly large number of imported animated series. A separate version of The DJ Kat Show was later created for the United States where it was aired on stations affiliated with the Fox Broadcasting Company, including WNYW, Fox's flagship station. This article focuses primarily on the original European version.

<i>Down Among the Z Men</i> 1952 British film

Down Among the Z Men is a 1952 black-and-white British comedy film starring the Goons: Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Michael Bentine and Harry Secombe. The movie was filmed early in the Goons' career before many of the show's recurring characters were created, and the stars only play one character each: Eccles (Milligan), Colonel Bloodnok (Sellers), Osric Pureheart (Bentine) and Harry Jones (Secombe).

<i>Mongrels</i> (TV series) British television series

Mongrels is a British puppet-based musical situation comedy series first broadcast on BBC Three between 22 June and 10 August 2010, with a making-of documentary entitled "Mongrels Uncovered" broadcast on 11 August 2010. A second and final series of Mongrels began airing on 7 November 2011.

References

  1. Radio Times 15 Sept - 8 Dec 1972
  2. "Monday 29 January 1979 — MELBOURNE". Television.AU. 28 January 2021. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  3. Comic Art Fans