I wonder whether Pongo the Rubovian dragon knew the Clangers Soup Dragon?

Joe recently posted on cartoons and puppets from his televisual childhood, and asked what our own memories were. I started to write a comment but by the time I'd hooked in the Youtube clips it was getting too long, so here are some of my own childhood memories.

Like Joe's other correspondents, when I was little we got the Hanna-Barbera cartoons (Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Deputy Dawg, Top Cat etc etc), and indeed a lot of American sitcoms like Mr Ed, My Favorite Martian, and The Beverly Hillbillies (though without the embedded ads in our case).





We had Tom & Jerry, and at weekends we got Bugs Bunny and his gang (which is where my abiding love for Wily E Coyote was born).



More local cartoon/puppet products were Noggin the Nog



and later Clangers



which were just the best ever.

There was also Captain Pugwash. Back in the day, he was in black and white and done with cardboard cut-outs, more like a puppet show than what we would thnk of as a cartoon. Still, Youtube only has the slightly higher-tech version.



Then there was Rubovia, which was pretty weird stuff:



And finally the Gerry & Sylvia Anderson puppetry stable, from Supercar through to Thunderbirds via Fireball XL5 and Stingray.









They don't write theme music like that any more!