And now, in lieu of content, I give you a video featuring that icon of British children’s television in the 1990s: Mr. Blobby!
Parents, please be warned that this video contains lots of swearing.
Okay, maybe I should explain.
Back in the early 1990s, there was a somewhat lowbrow comedy variety show on British television called Noel’s House Party based around comedian Noel Edwards. On some of the episodes, a new character featured called Mr. Blobby. Obstensibly a creation of children’s television along the lines of the Teletubbies, he looked a little like a… how shall I say this? A disturbingly phallic, polka-dotted PVC man with a maniacal grin.
He wasn’t real, of course. That was part of the prank. I’ll let Wikipedia explain:
Mr Blobby was presented to the celebrities as if he were a real and established children’s television character, in order to record an episode centred around the guest’s profession. In truth, there was no “Mr. Blobby” TV series, and he was created purely for the prank. Mr Blobby would clumsily take part in the activity, knocking over the set, causing mayhem and saying “blobby blobby blobby.” His childish and unprofessional behaviour was calculated to irritate the celebrities taking part. When the prank was finally revealed the Blobby costume would be opened, revealing Noel Edmonds inside.
Once the first Gotcha segments had aired, Mr Blobby was no longer usable as part of the Gotcha sequences, but continued to make appearances on Noel’s House Party, with various members of the production team donning the costume, created by artist Joshua Snow. A “Mrs Blobby” character was later introduced.
(link)
Around Christmas 1993, Mr. Blobby released a spoof song called (you guessed it) “Mr. Blobby”, which rocketed to #1 in the British music charts and proceeded to hold that spot until the New Year. Thus cementing Mr. Blobby in the minds of British Generation Y-ers everywhere who now look back on their high school years and say, “we were really kind of stupid back then, weren’t we?”
Join the club, kids. Join the club.
Anyway, with the BBC’s Channel 4 launching The Big Fat Quiz of the 90s, because it’s never too soon to look back on just finished times with nostal— holy cow, has it already been twenty years?! … Well, anyway: with the BBC’s Channel 4 launching this quiz show about the 1990s, of course Mr. Blobby would put in an appearance.
And I got to say, these five minutes are darn funny!
Thanks to Scott on Twitter for the link.