Zippy (Rainbow)

Zippy is a fictional character on the children's television programme "Rainbow". Zippy is an brownish-orange puppet with a huge rugby ball shaped oval head, big blue eyes and a zip for a mouth. His voice was first provided by Peter Hawkins, later by Roy Skelton. Ronnie Le Drew operated the character.

Persona

The character retains a cult following among those who watched the show as a child. He is probably the most famous character from the show, probably because he was the only one who really spoke his mind and would make for hours of laughter.Due to his frequently loud behaviour getting him into all sorts of trouble, other characters in Rainbow would zip his mouth shut, rendering him unable to talk. Oddly, Zippy would never simply un-zip himself, preferring to stay down in the dumps, submissively accepting his punishment.A replica zippy can now be found following Birmingham City FC

Appearance

In a "The Sun" tabloid newspaper article headlined "Revealed: Why lost star Zippy is orange", Zippy's orange colour is apparently due to presenter Geoffrey Hayes following Dundee United F.C. when living in Dundee, Scotland, during the 1960s and 1970s. The show's producers were set to make Zippy blue - the colour of neighbouring rivals Dundee F.C. - but Geoffrey was determined otherwise.

cquote|Zippy was going to be blue before I begged the producers to make him tangerine. One of the most common questions I'm asked is "What in God's name is Zippy meant to be?" You have me, a big bear, and a pink hippo and then there's Zippy. I don't think anyone has a clue what he's meant to be, but I do know why he's tangerine. It's because - like me - he's a Dundee United fan.

I lived in Dundee for much of the 60s and even came back a few times in the 70s. I had very happy times there and my fondest memories are of going to Tannadice Park one week and Dens Park the next. I became a United fan. They were languishing in the Second Division in those days, playing teams like Brechin and Alloa. Dundee were the strong successful team at the time, but we thought United played the more attractive football.

Because of that I was determined Zippy was not going to be blue.However, since Zippy had appeared (in orange) in the show for a full series before Geoffrey did, it is unlikely that Geoffrey had this significant role in Zippy's origins. FTD 83

In a BBC online poll for March 2006, Zippy was named as Britain's favourite sporting celebrity fan by a landslide margin with 47% of the vote. [cite web | author=BBC | year=2006| title=Zippy named top fan| work=www.bbc.co.uk | url=http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/funny_old_game/4789752.stm | accessdate=March 11 | accessyear=2006] Described as Dundee United's biggest fan, several newspapers including the "Daily Record", "The Courier" and "Sunday Herald" also covered the story in print and online. The poll included lifelong Port Vale F.C. fan Robbie Williams and Delia Smith, a director at Norwich City F.C.. In second place with 9.74% was movie star and Sheffield United F.C. fan Sean Bean. The poll attracted more than 15,000 votes.

Later appearances

.Zippy is currently part of an advertising campaign for Portuguese ketchup brand "Vitakrone".

Zippy appeared twice in a 2008 episode of Harry Hill's TV Burp. He featured in an edited scene of EastEnders mocking Tanya undoing a large number of zips when searching someone's handbag. There is a knock at the door and she closes all the zips on the bag and opens the door. Zippy is at the doorgreets her and she zips his mouth shut. He is also featured in the cataracts secment where he is included with a collection of guest stars (Noel Edmonds, Al Murray, Ben Miller and many others) repeating the word "Cataracts" in mockery of a scene from Emmerdale where a number of people find out that Val has Cataracts and begin saying the word in disbelief.

On the August 4, 2007, Roy Skelton was interviewed via telephone by Russell Brand on his Radio 2 show. Brand and his associate Matt Morgan asked Skelton some questions whilst in the persona of Zippy. But Skelton brought the interview to a halt when Brand asked him "Zippy? What do your genitals look like?" Skelton, whilst holidaying in the south of France, announced whilst in the voice of Zippy that he had to go and bizarrely hung up the phone. This left Brand and Morgan to speculate whether they had offended Skelton.

In the early 2000s, Zippy appeared in the "My Mate / I hate" advertising campaign for Marmite in the UK. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/features/2002/10/marmite_zippy.shtml] In the TV commercial he zipped up his own mouth when confronted with Marmite, thus confirming his hate for the product.

It is worth noting that during in-character interviews on shows such as SMTV Live Zippy is often portrayed as even more loud mouthed and crude than normal, going as far as saying "Fuck" during rehearsals for the royal variety performance in the 1980s. Fact|date=February 2008. The infamous Rainbow Christmas tape also displays cruder humour from the entire cast.

In December 2007 Zippy and George appeared on a puppet special of the Weakest Link hosted by Anne Robinson which was originally broadcast on Friday, December 28 2007 at 18:00GMT on BBC1.

References

External links

* [http://www.btinternet.com/~acbarrett/zip.htm A Zippy fanpage with sound files]