| rdfs:comment | - Gus Honeybun was the station mascot for Westward Television, and later Television South West, from 1961 to 1992. A puppet rabbit, and star of Gus Honeybun's Magic Birthdays, he achieved a longevity for a TV puppet second only to Sooty. There was also a TSW/Gus branded Hoppa bus, which was made by local bus & coach company, Western National. It was in regular use by them on most service routes, until TSW's demise in 1992.
|
| abstract | - Gus Honeybun was the station mascot for Westward Television, and later Television South West, from 1961 to 1992. A puppet rabbit, and star of Gus Honeybun's Magic Birthdays, he achieved a longevity for a TV puppet second only to Sooty. Gus Honeybun was filmed at Westward/TSW's Plymouth studios in the Derry's Cross part of the city. There were four different Gus Honeybun puppets and TSW employed a person to create Gus Honeybun's wardrobe. Gus had a theme tune composed by TV composer, Ed Welch, and a short video was made to accompany it, featuring Gus & several TSW presenters walking around in Plymouth. A 7" single of the theme song was released in several local record shops. Other Gus merchandise available were cuddly toy puppets, keyrings and car stickers. One car sticker said "Watch Gus on TSW!" and had both his face & the TSW logo on it. Gus Honeybun (given the full name Augustus J Honeybun by some continuity announcers) was supposedly found under a gorse bush on Dartmoor in 1961 by the founders of Westward Television. Several ITV franchise stations had at one time had a regional birthdays slot (often following Children's ITV or the predecessor children's television slot) with a continuity announcer and puppet announcing children's birthdays. Today Channel Television is the only region to continue with such a practice with its Puffin's Pla(i)ce programme. With Gus the announcer would read out a birthday card and the puppet would give a jump, known as bunny hops,for each year of the childs' life. Alternatives to bunny hops were ear waggles, head stands, winks and later "putting out the lights" and a colour distorting "magic button". Gus appeared with virtually every Westward/TSW presenter, including the likes of the late Ian Stirling, Fern Britton, Judi Spiers, David Fitzgerald, Ruth Langsford & Sally Meen. During the TSW-era, Gus was broadcast twice a day on weekdays (before & after Children's ITV), and usually once a day at weekends. The show usually lasted about 2 or 3 minutes per episode. From 1987 - 1990, TSW used to often opt-out of showing the first & last Children's ITV in-vision continuity links of the day, so it could fit in Gus' birthday slot on weekday afternoons. It was also rumoured that in September 1989, the 'real' reason TSW moved the tea-time repeat of Australian soap, Home and Away from its original slot of 5:10pm, to an earlier time of 3:27pm, was to give Gus some more air-time, therefore also ending anymore CITV opt-outs. The opt-outs were eventually stopped for good in January 1990. There was also a TSW/Gus branded Hoppa bus, which was made by local bus & coach company, Western National. It was in regular use by them on most service routes, until TSW's demise in 1992.
|
