Sooty hasn't been on TV for a while. But you probably hadn't noticed because a) you're not a child and b) Sooty is the rubbishest children's character ever.
But despite being so rubbish and boring that it'd be more fun to watch a TV show about a static eggcup full of gravel from Norfolk, Sooty is back! Puppeteer Richard Cadell has just bought the rights to Sooty from Hit Entertainment for close to a million pounds.
Now comes the real problem – Cadell needs to try and work out how to update Sooty and make him relevant for today's sophisticated youth. Though, just to clear things up, Sooty's Real Life Pub Car Park Knife Fights was our idea first. Don't be copying us, Cadell.
Exactly how did Sooty get to be so popular? We genuinely can't understand it – a mute, bright yellow double amputee bear with a Hitler moustache who lives in a box, whispers commands to his human slaves and exacts violent revenge on his enemies with sorcery? That's not entertainment, that's a nightmarish punishment.
Despite this – and despite having a catchphrase of "Bye bye everybody, bye bye" intoned in such a startlingly sinister way that it may as well be "I'm coming round your house to touch you in your sleep, children" – Sooty has become a national institution. We just don't get it.
However, Sooty's fallen on hard times lately. After Sooty's previous owner Matthew Corbett retired to devote more time to his creepy beard in 1998, things dried up a little. Sooty was sold to megacorporation Hit Entertainment, but he couldn't recapture his glory years and, as such, no new Sooty shows have been made for four years.
That could all be about to change though, because Richard Cadell – the man who has operated Sooty since Corbett's retirement – has just bought the rights to Sooty and his friends from Hit Entertainment, presumably with funds raised by selling his extensive collection of hair straighteners, and is about to go it alone. The Guardian reports:
Richard Cadell, who has presented the TV show featuring the much loved children's character for 10 years, has teamed up with his brother to buy the rights to Sooty. Matthew Corbett backed Cadell's buyout. "I am delighted that Sooty is in, or should I say on, the right hands. Richard Cadell is as close to a Corbett as you can get and we are very confident that he will give Sooty the love and attention that he deserves."
And now that he's spent almost a million pounds on what's essentially a scrap of yellow fabric in a box, Richard Cadell is going to make damn sure that Sooty starts earning. He's already set up a touring stage show – much like the Elvis 1968 Comeback Special, where Sooty will be dressed in leather and perform old classics like 'Sooty hilariously squirts his owner with a water pistol' from within a boxing ring – but that's not all.
In addition, Richard Cadell has proposed three new Sooty TV shows – a studio-based variety show, a sitcom and a pre-school gameshow. But will these be a success? Today's children have been raised on a diet of Sex And The City, Call Of Duty 4 and hanging round Bluewater intimidating the elderly – can Sooty still cut it?
Let's hope so – we don't want to see him going the way of Edd The Duck. We hear you've been able to find him giving handjobs to businessmen for crack outside King's Cross ever since his bubble burst in the mid-nineties.
J Bollocks says
What was that Sooty?Felch