Billy Bunter

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Billy Bunter

William George Bunter (a.k.a. Billy Bunter, the "Fat Owl of the Remove"), is a fictional character created by Charles Hamilton using the pen name Frank Richards. He featured originally in stories set at Greyfriars School in the boys weekly story paper The Magnet first published in 1908, and has since appeared in novels, on television, in stage plays, and in comic strips.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Origins

Charles Hamilton invented the character for an unpublished story in the late 1890s. He claimed Bunter was derived from three persons: a corpulent editor, a short-sighted relative, and another relative who was perpetually trying to raise a loan on the strength of the anticipated arrival of a cheque. The name Bunter was in common use at the time, due to the popularity of a patent medicine known as Bunter's Nervine Tonic. The name Bill Bunter was used by Hamilton for a story in The Gem only months before the launch of The Magnet. There was a previous character called Billy Bunter, created by H Philpott Wright, who appeared in a series of stories in The Vanguard Library from 1907, but whose character bore no resemblance to his more famous namesake(Cadogan 1988:53-55).

[edit] Magnet Stories

Billy Bunter was not a major figure in the earliest days of The Magnet. Within a few years, however, Hamilton realised the comic potential of the character and made him the focal point of many of the stories. As his prominence grew, so did his cunning, enabling his actions to drive a wide variety of plots.

Bunter appeared in 1,670 of the 1,683 issues of The Magnet which were published during the thirty years from 1908 to 1940. In addition to stories set at Greyfriars School, his adventures also included many travel series: with trips to China, India, Egypt, Sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, Hollywood, and the South Seas.

[edit] Other Greyfriars stories

The first hardback, 1946

Following the closure of The Magnet in 1940, Hamilton had little work but he became known as the author of the stories following a newspaper interview he gave to the London Evening Standard.

Although Hamilton had written many thousands of stories published by the Amalgamated Press between 1900 and 1940, he had written them under dozens of pen names, so he himself was quite unknown prior to the appearance of that newspaper article. Nor was it even widely known until then that all the stories written under those pen names were, in the main, all the work of one man.

Hamilton was not able to continue the Greyfriars saga immediately, as the Amalgamated Press claimed ownership of the rights to the name Greyfriars (though not to Bunter himself). However, by 1946 they had relented and Hamilton was then able to obtain a contract from publishers Charles Skilton for a series of hardback novels. The first of these, Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School, was published in September 1947. It was to prove the first of a series which was to continue for the rest of his life. Subsequently, in the 1950s, the initial novels were reprinted by Cassells, who took over publication of the series, which continued until 1967, with the final novels being published posthumously.

[edit] Television

Gerald Campion as 'Billy Bunter'

Billy Bunter was played by Gerald Campion[1] in a BBC television series. 40 half hour episodes were broadcast over seven series, between 1952 and 1961; and there were also three television specials. The television show was totally centred on Bunter, with the other characters playing only a peripheral role.

All the television scripts were written by Charles Hamilton. The programme's memorable theme music was Ralph Vaughan Williams's Sea Songs.

The programmes were made in black-and-white, and a dozen of them still exist in the BBC's Film & Videotape Archive. Those which survive are the complete third series, five episodes from the sixth series, and a single poor quality episode from the seventh series. Some of these have appeared recently on YouTube.com

[edit] Stage

There were also Christmas stage shows with different casts:

[edit] Comics

After The Magnet closed in 1940, Bunter appeared in children's comics, as a strip cartoon character: initially, from 15 June 1940, he appeared in Knockout (which, like The Magnet, was also published by The Amalgamated Press). Although Knockout had begun only in 1939, it already had a circulation several times that of The Magnet. C H Chapman, the last illustrator for The Magnet, drew the first nine Knockout strips, after which several artists were tried, before Frank Minnit established himself with a beaming and bouncy Bunter which at first followed Chapman's style, then later branched off into a style of his own, concentrating on slapstick humour. Soon the Famous Five vanished from the strip, replaced by Jones minor, who had all the good qualities Bunter lacked, but who was prone to being led astray by Bunter. The form-master, Mr Quelch, stayed (at least in name), but he lost his dignity and aloofness.

Minnit continued producing the strip until his death in 1958. Reg Parlett then took over until Knockout ceased publication in 1961, when the strip transferred to Valiant comic, and then to TV Comic, where it ran until 1984. Bunter also appeared in many Knockout annuals, even on some covers.

C H Chapman drew a strip for Comet comic in 1956 which featured the classical old Bunter of The Magnet and the Famous Five, consisting of twelve weeks of 2-page strips (24 pages in all). Altogether, Bunter's appearances in Comet lasted from March 1950 until June 1958, with picture stories from February 1952.

From 1955, Billy Bunter comic strips were published in Holland, in the Dutch language comic Sjors, with the character renamed "Billie Turf". Bunter thus became one of the house characters of that comic and its successors, and so continued appearing in anthology-style collections in Dutch until the end of the 20th century. "Billie Turf" comic strip albums were published from 1963 onwards, and have continued into the 21st century. Three Billie Turf movies were made between 1978 and 1983, mostly spelling the name of the main character as "Billy Turf".

Bunter also made a very late appearance in the UK adult comic 'Viz', in the strip 'Baxter Basics', as Sir William Bunter, conservative candidate for Greyfriars Central, grossly overweight, and with a heart monitor continuously attached to his chest; but the character was immediately killed off by Baxter (by bursting a paper bag, thereby causing him to have a heart attack) so that Baxter could take his Parliamentary seat, and thus become an MP again.

[edit] Appearances in other fiction

  • Billy Bunter appears in Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Black Dossier, and still resides at the now closed Greyfriars in 1958 as an old man. He sells information about the former students of the school, which is supposed to have been a recruiting ground for spies and agents for the crown since the 1500s.
  • In Bunter Sahib by Daniel Green, Bunter's identical ancester is placed in nineteenth Century India.
  • David Hughes in But for Bunter creates the idea that the Greyfriars stories were based on real people and set out to find them and hear their stories.

[edit] Character

Billy Bunter is essentially a comic anti-hero, whose actions puncture and deflate the serious world of the English public school, inverting conventional values like a 'Lord of Misrule'. His main physical characteristics are obesity, brought about by over-eating, and short-sightedness (hence his nickname 'the fat owl of the Remove'). He is dishonest, greedy, pathologically self-centered, snobbish, conceited, lazy, cowardly, mean-spirited and stupid. Nevertheless, he succeeds in achieving reader sympathy by virtue of the humour which the character generates, partly through his brazen effrontery and persistence in the face of inevitable failure.

His one talent is that he is a skilled ventriloquist, able to mimic any voice and to make it appear to be coming from any location. This unlikely ability often forms part of his schemes of deception, and thus serves to advance the storylines.

He is allowed very little pocket money by his father, so is perpetually attempting to raise a loan on the strength of the legendary postal order he claims to be expecting. He began expecting that Postal Order in 1908, and was still awaiting its arrival in the final published novel in 1967! Due to his insatiable appetite, his life at Greyfriars is taken up with devising ways of pilfering food; he has little or no interest in anything else, especially classwork and sports. His schemes are invariably discovered, leading to physical chastisement - both from masters (canings) and schoolfellows (kickings).

His speech is notable for a series of frequently-repeated catchphrases. These include his invariable opening line, "I say you fellows"; his reply to criticism, "Oh really Wharton" (or whoever is speaking); his characteristic giggle, "He, he, he"; and his exclamation of pain, "Yarooh".

George Orwell described him as "a real creation. His tight trousers against which boots and canes are constantly thudding, his astuteness in search of food, his postal order which never turns up, have made him famous wherever the Union Jack waves." (Orwell 1940)

[edit] Family

The family home is Bunter Villa in Surrey, which Bunter frequently mis-describes as Bunter Court, representing it as a stately home. Prominent among the many family members who have appeared in the stories are:

  • Sister - Bessie Bunter - a pupil at the nearby Cliff House Girls School. Shares similar characteristics to Billy.
  • Younger brother - Sammy Bunter - in the Second Form at Greyfriars.
  • Father - Mr Samuel Bunter - a portly, largely unsuccessful, stockbroker with a severe manner. He is perpetually complaining about income tax and school fees and has little interest in his children.
  • Mother - Mrs Amelia Bunter - only appears briefly in seven stories; she is a kindly lady, the one person for whom Billy feels genuine affection.

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

  • Beal, George (Editor) (1977). The Magnet Companion. London: Howard Baker.
  • Cadogan, Mary (1988). Frank Richards - The Chap Behind The Chums. Middlesex: Viking.
  • Fayne, Eric & Jenkins, Roger (1972). A History of The Magnet and The Gem. Kent: Museum Press.
  • Hamilton Wright, Una & McCall, Peter (2006). The Far Side of Billy Bunter: the Biography of Charles Hamilton. London: Friars Library.
  • Lofts, W.O.G. & Adley, D.J. (1975). The World of Frank Richards. London: Howard Baker.
  • McCall, Peter (1982). The Greyfriars Guide. London: Howard Baker.
  • Orwell, George (1940). Boys Weeklies. Horizon.
  • Richards, Frank (1940). Frank Richards Replies to Orwell. Horizon.
  • Richards, Frank (1962). The Autobiography of Frank Richards. London: Skilton.
  • Richards, Jeffery (1991). Happiest Days: Public Schools in English Fiction. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  • Turner, E.S. (1975). Boys will be Boys – 3rd edition. London: Penguin.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Report of Gerald Campion's passing: ComicsUK.co.uk website. Retrieved on October 4, 2007
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bunter"
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