The Sooty Show

When the children's programme first premiered, Harry Corbett focused the format towards a series of comedy sketches aimed at entertaining children, conducting most of the filming within a studio and in the presence of a young audience. The format remained unchanged during the programme's tenure with the BBC, and continued to remain so after it moved over to ITV in 1968, and following Harry's retirement in 1976. Matthew Corbett maintained the format until 1981, when it was decided that it be changed towards a sitcom-based style of programme, dropping the use of a studio audience and a series of misadventures, and exchanging these for a single misadventure for each subsequent episode. As part of the change, the show incorporated the use of scenes taking place within a home that both Matthew and Sooty, alongside Soo and Sweep, lived in, alongside additional scenes filmed in various outdoor locations.

Under the sitcom format, the group lived within a house that incorporated various rooms for them, including an attic space, a kitchen/dining area, bedrooms, and bathrooms, of which specially designed sets were created for use by the puppet characters, that were later updated and maintained in subsequent Sooty programmes - the bathroom created for this setup was specially designed so that the miniature faucets and shower head both dispensed running water. The main premise of each episode was that the group were attempting something new that would go wrong, or attempting to fix a problem that they had encountered. Some episodes also tended to be educational in various ways - the episode "What a Load of Rubbish" was aimed at teaching children about helping to keep the environment clean of rubbish. The new format also drew in the involvement of a variety of guest stars, including Mike Reid, Dennis Taylor, Mark Chamberlain, June Whitfield, and Rory McGrath. The use of guest stars were more frequent during the 1980s, but reduced within the show's final three series.

From its premiere in 1955, The Sooty Show was aired on BBC One until 1967, when it was cancelled by Paul Fox, the controller of BBC One at the time. Part of the reason for the cancellation was due to his decision to clear out long-running television programmes on the channel to make way for new shows. The programme remained on hiatus until it was picked up by ITV in 1968,[3] who assigned its broadcast over to Thames Television shortly after its launch. The programme continued to be produced by Thames for ITV until They lost their franchise rights in 1992. Alongside broadcasts in the UK, the show was also given international broadcasts in Australia on ABC, in New Zealand on TVNZ, and in the United States on American Broadcasting Company (ABC).

A comic strip based on Sooty ran in the children's magazine Playhour between 1960 and 1961, drawn by Gordon Hutchings.[4]

The success of The Sooty Show led to the formation of the Sooty franchise. The programme spawned several sequels after its conclusion in 1992, which all stuck to the same sitcom format of The Sooty Show - a sequel in 1993 entitled Sooty & Co.; a second sequel entitled Sooty Heights, later renamed Sooty from 1999 to 2004; and a third sequel, also entitled Sooty in 2011. In addition, it also spawned several spin-offs - an educational programme entitled Learn With Sooty from 1989 to 1991; an animated spin-off entitled Sooty's Amazing Adventures! that ran from 1996–97; and a spin-off entitled Sooty's Magic Show! (2000–02). In addition, the programme spawned several forms of merchandising and stage productions.

Also, in January 2008, a promotional DVD containing 5 early-1980s episodes was distributed by The Times newspaper, for Fremantle Media. The episodes featured were: Bob a Job; Safety First; Sleep Walking; Connie Comes to Tea; and Sooty's Christmas Panto.

• The Sooty Show on IMDb