puppet
A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or Legendary creature, mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. Puppetry is an ancient form of theatre which dates back to the 5th century BC in anci ...
mongrel
A mongrel, mutt, or mixed-breed dog is a dog that does not belong to one officially recognized breed, including those that result from intentional breeding. Although the term ''mixed-breed dog'' is sometimes preferred, many mongrels have no kn ...
dog character, who co-presented the
Children's ITV
CITV is a British children's morning programming block on ITV2 and formerly a free-to-air channel owned by ITV plc. CITV, then Children's ITV, launched on 3 January 1983 as a late afternoon programming block on the ITV network for children aged ...
afternoon service from January 1989 – March 1991 in the United Kingdom.
Children's ITV
Children's ITV's bosses had noticed how successful puppet characters (such as
Gordon the Gopher
Gordon the Gopher, also known as Gordon T. Gopher, is an English puppet gopher who first appeared on Children's BBC (CBBC) between 1985 and 1987, listed on television shows by Phillip Schofield on the interstitial or in-vision continuity ...
and
Edd the Duck
Edd the Duck (originally Ed the Duck) is a puppet duck featured on the CBBC interstitial programme ''The Broom Cupboard'' alongside presenters Andy Crane and Andi Peters
History
Edd the Duck first appeared in late 1988 with a bald head, which l ...
) had been on its rival,
Children's BBC
BBC Children's and Education is the BBC division responsible for media content for children in the UK. Since the launch of specially dedicated television channels in 2002, the services have been marketed under two brands. CBBC (short for Chil ...
, so they decided to create their own version, which was Scally the Dog. He was operated and voiced alternately by three different puppeteers, who were
Richard Coombs
Richard Coombs is a British puppeteer who has worked extensively on television shows, feature films, commercials, and music videos. From 1987 to 1988, he worked on the ITV Network, ITV Saturday morning children's show, ''Get Fresh'', where he oper ...
,
John Eccleston
John Eccleston is an English puppeteer, writer and presenter known for his work as lead puppeteer of Rygel on ''Farscape'', Groove on ''The Hoobs'', and his many roles on British children's television alongside Don Austen. He was also behind ...
and Michael J. Bassett. Coombs was the original operator of Scally and also built the puppet of him too. However, due to him working on other TV projects at the time, he had to share the duties of doing Scally with both Eccleston and Bassett too. During his time at Children's ITV, there was also a short-lived ''Scally'' cartoon strip in the children's TV magazine ''
Look-in
''Look-in'' was a children's magazine centred on ITV's television programmes in the United Kingdom, and subtitled "The Junior '' TVTimes''". It ran from 9 January 1971 to 12 March 1994.Jerry Foulkes, in the afternoons for the rest of '89. In Summer 1989, when Stonewall's Children's ITV summer mornings service launched, he appeared with new recruits,
Clive Warren
Clive Warren (born 1967) is a British radio presenter.
Early career
Warren's first experience of radio broadcasting came at Radio Moorfields, the hospital station at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, which broadcast from 1974 until 2006. Fro ...
and Jeanne Downs. Scally had several catchphrases that he often used on Children's ITV, one of which was: "Yes, indeedy!", which he usually said when he was happy about something. Another one was: "We're still here!", which was often said by both Foulkes and Scally during their links, referring to them still being on-air at the time.
Foulkes left Children's ITV on 22 December 1989, so Downs took over presenting in the afternoons on 2 January 1990, along with Scally. This continued until 29 March 1991, when Stonewall lost the contract to produce Children's ITV back to Central Television (who had also done it previously from 1983–1989). They were both replaced by a solo
Tommy Boyd
Timothy Leslie "Tommy" Boyd (born 14 December 1952) is a British television and radio presenter. He gained prominence in the 1970s and 1980s as host of the children's television programmes ''Magpie'', '' Wide Awake Club'', and ''The Saturday ...
on 1 April 1991. However, both Downs and Scally (operated and voiced by Coombs) made a return to CITV 12 years later on 3 January 2003, when they appeared on a special one-off programme called ''CITV's 20th Birthday Bash'', shown as part of the
ITV
ITV or iTV may refer to:
Television TV stations/networks/channels ITV
*Independent Television (ITV), a British television network and company, including:
**ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network in the United Kingd ...
According to a post by Downs on the ''TV Forum'' website in 1998, the puppet of Scally now resides at the
Museum of the Moving Image
The Museum of the Moving Image is a media museum located in a former building of the historic Astoria Studios (now Kaufman Astoria Studios), in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens in New York City. The museum originally opened in 1988 as the Am ...
in
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...
, and is owned by someone who used to work on the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
Saturday morning kids' show ''
Live & Kicking
''Live & Kicking'' was a British children's television series that originally aired on BBC1 from 2 October 1993 to 15 September 2001. It was the replacement for '' Going Live!'', and took many of its features from it, such as phone-ins, games, ...