Bertie the Bunyip

Bertie the Bunyip (~1960)

Bertie the Bunyip was the lead puppet character on the popular American children's television series The Bertie the Bunyip Show[1] in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which ran from 1954 to 1966. [2] He was portrayed as a black-colored seal-looking character with a duck-bill-type face. For children he was cute and friendly, getting into harmless situations.

Created by Australian Lee Dexter, Bertie was a bunyip (a mythological Australian creature), described by Dexter as "a cross between a bunny, a collie dog and a duck billed platypus."

Bertie's enemy was an aristocratic fox by the name of Sir Guy de Guy. A newspaper article published shortly after his death featured an interview with Lee Dexter, who noted that Sir Guy was named after the ubiquitous TV Guide - but this turned out to be just another bogus attempt to cash in on the notoriety of Dexter's puppets, and there was a protracted struggle for ownership of the puppets. Dexter suffered from Alzheimer's Disease in his later years and was confined to a nursing home in southern New Jersey; he was unable to shed any light on his puppets including who should get them!

References

  1. ↑ http://www.tvacres.com/creatures_bunyip.htm (retrieved March 18, 2014)
  2. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-07-31. Retrieved 2006-09-10. (retrieved May 4, 2017)


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