For this month's edition of the TV Crossover Hall of Fame, we're getting back to the traditional offering for June - puppets!
Unlike most cartoon characters and many of the stop motion/claymation characters found on television, puppets co-exist with humans in the main Toobworld, Earth Prime-Time. Our splainin is that they are a spirit people who assume these shells to give them visible form. And their characteristics are determined by the type of shell that they wear - Kermit would be a frog, Chairy would be a chair, and Topo Gigio would be a mouse.
And it's that internationally known vermin whom we're saluting today.
Here in America, we know Topo Gigio best from his 92 appearances on 'The Ed Sullivan Show', beginning in 1963. In fact, it was Topo Gigio who closed out the series with Mr. Sullivan on the final episode on 1971.
Although we didn't see Topo Gigio, the televersion of Ed Sullivan thanked him as the show was joined in progress (seen in the Billy Joel video for his song "Tell Her About It".
But Topo Gigio first gained fame in his "native" Italy, where he was the lead character on a children's puppet show in the early 1960s. And he had been around since 1958 before he broke into Toobworld.
After 'The Ed Sullivan Show' became a memory, Topo Gigio found a wealth of new fans in Latin America with his own TV shows in Peru and Mexico. In 2006, Topo Gigio appeared in several segments of a sports show as Germany hosted the World Cup. And he's also a citizen of the Tooniverse, thanks to a 1988 Japanese production about his adventures 400 years in the future.
So here's to the little puppet mouse, a true citizen of the world, in the Trueniverse as well as the TV Universe.
"Kees me goo'night!"
BCnU!
Toby OB
Unlike most cartoon characters and many of the stop motion/claymation characters found on television, puppets co-exist with humans in the main Toobworld, Earth Prime-Time. Our splainin is that they are a spirit people who assume these shells to give them visible form. And their characteristics are determined by the type of shell that they wear - Kermit would be a frog, Chairy would be a chair, and Topo Gigio would be a mouse.
And it's that internationally known vermin whom we're saluting today.
Here in America, we know Topo Gigio best from his 92 appearances on 'The Ed Sullivan Show', beginning in 1963. In fact, it was Topo Gigio who closed out the series with Mr. Sullivan on the final episode on 1971.Although we didn't see Topo Gigio, the televersion of Ed Sullivan thanked him as the show was joined in progress (seen in the Billy Joel video for his song "Tell Her About It".
But Topo Gigio first gained fame in his "native" Italy, where he was the lead character on a children's puppet show in the early 1960s. And he had been around since 1958 before he broke into Toobworld.
After 'The Ed Sullivan Show' became a memory, Topo Gigio found a wealth of new fans in Latin America with his own TV shows in Peru and Mexico. In 2006, Topo Gigio appeared in several segments of a sports show as Germany hosted the World Cup. And he's also a citizen of the Tooniverse, thanks to a 1988 Japanese production about his adventures 400 years in the future.
So here's to the little puppet mouse, a true citizen of the world, in the Trueniverse as well as the TV Universe.
"Kees me goo'night!"BCnU!
Toby OB
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