Noddy

Noddy, oh Noddy! At once a cute figure and also a sign of the times! How times have changed.

Noddy was a toy and cartoon character that I watched on TV as part of the series “Noddy’s Toyland Adventures” which were shown 1975-1982 – and was as big a part of my childhood as Postman Pat, or as Teletubbies are to more recent generations.

Noddy was/ is a little wooden boy who lives in his own little House in Toyland. Apparently he was carved by a wood carver but ran away after the man began to make a wooden lion, which scared Noddy – when wandering in the woods, with no clothes, money or home, he meets Big Ears, a friendly brownie who decides to take Noddy to live in Toyland. Noddy's companion and pet is the fun and full-of-life "Bumpy Dog". Bumpy goes everywhere with Noddy. There are so many idiosyncrasies and signs of the times in Noddy – the fact that there are Characters with un-pc names like “Big ears” or “Mr Tubby” and in the books and early series there are black characters called “the gollies” who are bad toys.

The fact is that 8 separate TV series of Noddy have been made since 1963 and are actually still being made in 2011 shows that he is a very iconic character.

I was a big fan of Enid Blyton’s other books as well, “The Adventures of the Wishing Chair”, and “Mr Pink whistle”. They were all good stories, it’s only when you grow up and look back in a more modern society that Blyton’s books can seem un-pc or of the old world.

But noddy always seemed to me, my child’s mind, a very simple character who was kind and generous with his time. He would drive around toyland in his car, ferrying the other toys around, trying to help. But always getting confused because of his child-like misunderstandings of the world.

Noddy fact - There was a spoof page of "Noddy-ana" in Hot Rod magazine (U.K.), in about 1976–78 where Noddy had a Hot rod, and Big Ears smoked, and was very disrespectful to Mr. Plod. Sounds funny, very "Top Gear".