Those immortal words remembered from childhood, belonging to the ever endearing glove puppet bear, Sooty.
Sooty was created in 1948 by Harry Corbett who unfortunately died in 1975, luckily for the next generation Sooty was continued by his son Matthew Corbett.
The character was later revived by Richard Cadell who in the 1990's introduced new characters, such as little cousin Scampi.
The youngest Sooty, photographed above is a Sooty Limited puppet and dates from the year 2000. He is in excellent condition complete with his wand.
The older Sooty glove puppets are (left to right):
Chad Valley 1950's;
Chad Valley Chiltern 1960's;
Unlabeled possibly 1960's;
They all range in price from £12 to £30 dependant on age and condition.
Throughout the years Sooty had a series of friends, Sweep, the grey dog, joined him in 1957 and became his constant companion. In 1964 Soo came on the scene as the calming influence to Sooty's rather boisterous behaviour. Other characters also appeared in the TV shows, amongst them the brown dog, Butch, who was later the 'bad guy' in the 1970's series Sooty & Co. Cousin Scampi, as we have already mentioned was a much more recent addition first appearing on the show in the 1990's.
If you have a Sooty glove puppet and would like to try to date him then here are some of the labels we have in this group. Chad Valley are the older 1950's bears, they joined with Chiltern in the 1960's through the 1970's. The bears were then made by Patsy B Manufacturing from 1980 (Taiwan label) then later showing a China label up to 2009. The Sooty Limited label is dated and we have from 2000 to 2017 although I cannot find anything about the company, it is probably part of The Sooty Show marketing.
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