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After his 19 strip stint in The EAGLE, CAPTAIN HORATIO PUGWASH appeared in the RADIO TIMES in 1957. At around the same time, the BBC started broadcasting the first series of black and white (live) episodes (numbering 86 or 87 in total - accounts differ), which ran until 1966. The first Pugwash book appeared in 1957 and there were 21 of them right up until 1991.
There was also a 30 episode colour series broadcast between 1974 and '75, and a new series of 26 episodes first shown in 1997, although the latter was digital and part computer animated, unlike the 1970s classic series, which used cardboard cutouts laid over a backdrop scene and hand-moved with levers.
Contrary to popular myth, none of the Pugwash characters ever had 'sexually suggestive' names, and creator JOHN RYAN successfully sued The SUNDAY CORRESPONDENT and The GUARDIAN newspapers in 1991, when they printed this tale as fact. The book The GOLDEN AGE Of TELEVISION was also published with this misinformation, but had a 'correction' label and apology stuck over the offending paragraph on page 155.
So, here's ol' Captain Pugwash in 9 episodes of comic strip glory, as printed in The Eagle in 1950 - a good few years before he became a TV legend and a British cultural icon. Enjoy.
You mean to say,Master Bates and Seaman Stains were a fabrication!
ReplyDeleteWhatever next,you'll be telling me the Wombles were not real. Hmm!
Of course the Wombles were real - especially Big Willy Womble and Hugh Jarse Womble.
ReplyDelete....Well those seamates will live on in MY memory, anyway, me hearties!!
ReplyDeleteBut they never existed, JP, so how can you remember them? You surely mean they'll live on in your imagination. (Okay, I'm being pedantic.)
ReplyDeleteAh now, you seem to forget just how powerful my imagination is! So powerful, in fact, that it can create an alternative past, where different events happened!
ReplyDeleteAnd Puggy's crew was one of 'em!
I often do the same thing, JP - I'm trapped in a world I DID make!
ReplyDelete