260 Pipkins

First  watched  : Uncertain

Another  in  the  "only  watched  when  off  sick"  category , Pipkins  emerged  round  about  the  same  time  as  Hickory  House   in  the  same  time  slot  and  I've  always  had  difficulty  disentangling  the  two  in  my  recollection. Pipkins  had  no  connection  to  Tony  Burrows  and  Roger  Greenaway's  novelty  musical  act  of  the  same  name.

Pipkins  started  out  in  1973  as  Inigo  Pipkin  with  actor  George  Woodbridge  playing  an  elderly  puppet  maker   assisted  by  some  of  his  creations  Hartley  Hare, Topov  the  monkey  , the  imaginatively  named  Pig  and  Octavia  the  ostrich. Woodbridge  died  halfway  through  filming  the  second  series  so  the  title  had  to  be  changed  and  Jackie  Lee's  distinctive  theme  tune  dropped. In  a  first  for  children's  TV  it  was  explained  in  the  programme  itself  that  Mr Pipkins  had  died  with  assistant  Johnny  ( Ben  Laryea  )  taking  over  the  shop.

The  show  was  pretty  low  budget  with  all  the  puppets  looking  pretty  ragged. Hartley,  the  main  character  with  the  annoyingly  camp  voice  , looked  particularly  rough  and  actually  rather  scary. Perhaps  he  was  the  inspiration  for  the  rabbit  in  Donnie  Darko.

The  programme  ran  until  1981  when  ATV  had  to  restructure  itself  into  Central.