Mr Blobby

Mr. Blobby is also the name of a popular internet meme photo of a member of the blobfish family.

File:Mr Blobby.jpg

Mr. Blobby

Mr. Blobby featured on Noel Edmonds' Saturday night entertainment show Noel's House Party, which was often a ratings winner in the 1990s. Mr. Blobby also appeared on the Jamie Rose show of 1997. He was designed as an outrageously over the top parody of a one-dimensional, mute novelty character, which made him distinctive, absurd and popular. He was a large pink humanoid, covered with yellow spots, sporting a permanent toothy grin and jiggling eyes. He communicated by saying the word "blobby" in an electronically-altered voice, expressing his moods through tone of voice and repetition. There was a Mrs. Blobby, seen briefly in the video, and sold as a doll.

However Mr. Blobby actually started out as part of the 'Gotcha' feature during the show's second series (originally called 'Gotcha Oscars' until the threat of legal action from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences), in which celebrities were caught out in a Candid Camera style prank. Celebrities such as dancer Wayne Sleep and rugby union player Will Carling would be enticed to take part in a fictitious children's programme based around their profession. Mr. Blobby would clumsily take part in the activity, knocking over the set, causing mayhem and saying "blobby blobby blobby", until finally when the prank was revealed, the Blobby costume would be opened - revealing Noel inside. This was all the more surprising for the "victim" as during rehearsals Blobby would be played by an actor wearing only the arms and legs of the costume and speaking in a normal manner.

The Song and the Video

The Mr. Blobby spoof theme song "Mr. Blobby" was released as a single, and hit #1 on the UK top 40 charts. On Dec 11 1993, it hit #1, replacing Meat Loaf's "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" which had been in the #1 spot for 7 weeks. A week later, "Babe" by Take That bumped it off #1, but only for a week. It returned to the #1 spot on the charts on Christmas Day and remained for another 2 weeks. The song also became the first to return to the top the No1 position since 1968. List of Christmas number one singles (UK) The single later received the dubious honour of being voted the most annoying Christmas #1 single according to the yearly HMV poll.

A music video was created for the single, which spoofed several famous music videos. For example, Mr. Blobby took the role of the dying man from the Shakespears Sister "Stay" video which featured a Marcella Detroit lookalike, there was a segment which featured guitar playing girls dressed like the "Addicted to Love Video" and homage to the members of Genesis spoofing their "I Can't Dance" video. It featured Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear as Mr. Blobby's limo driver.

Mr. Blobby was a One Hit Wonder for two years, however a follow up single called "Christmas In Blobbyland" was released on 16 December 1995, peaking at number 36 and it was in the charts for 4 weeks.

Popularity

Following his popularity, Mr. Blobby eventually became a character in his own right, despite his major talent- falling down. The Mr. Blobby costumes were created by artist Joshua Snow.

Mr. Blobby was hired to make appearances at events such as university balls. For example, he was the guest performer at the University of Birmingham, England Spring Ball in 1994.

Through Noel's House Party, Mr. Blobby was seen in shorts, 'guest appearing' on other fictional TV programmes. Examples include Lovejoy, where he unintentionally broke antique furniture, and Keeping Up Appearances, where he was seen making an impromptu visit on Hyacinth and Richard Bucket, disrupting their kitchen.

Criticism

Despite Blobby's lengthy tenure at the BBC, the character was criticised due to his broad, low-brow humour. In his 2008 autobiography, broadcasting legend and former BBC employee Sir Michael Parkinson acknowledged these criticisms and expressed disdain for the character, stating that he found him "unamusing."

His 1993 single "Mr. Blobby", which reached #1 in the UK at Christmas 1993, was voted the worst Christmas song ever in a 2002 poll conducted by HMV.

Other appearances

Mr. Blobby stood in the Littleborough and Saddleworth by-election in 1995, having changed his name from John McLagan. Mr. Blobby has also made regular appearances on Saturday morning show Live & Kicking and Saturday evening show Jim Davidson's Generation Game. He appeared on a Get Your Own Back Christmas special (17 December 1997), he went on the Gunk Dunk to ask the questions when Dave Benson Phillips was in the chair and because he could only say 'Blobby', Phillips got all the questions wrong and was thrown in the gunge pool. It was therefore set up so that he would go in.

In 2002 Mr. Blobby appeared in pantomime in Croydon, London. The actor wearing the suit came to the rescue of "star" Stephen Mulhern when he found the panto audience difficult. The actor, Barry Killerby, pretended to be the female producer of the show and threatened to have the young people at the front of the auditorium "removed from the Theatre". In the press it stated the word Theatre was elongated in a very theatrical way. There was confusion as to whether Killerby was serious but Mulhern found he could work better with a silent Panto audience than a true panto audience. One group in question wrote to Killerby about this, no reply was forthcoming.

The character Krotchy in the 2003 PC game Postal² seems to be a visual parody of Mr. Blobby.

He has also appeared in the music video for Peter Kay's 2005 charity single "Is This the Way to Amarillo", where he was played by actor Martin Jarvis. He was also a celebrity Bungalowhead on Dick and Dom in da Bungalow. He also appeared in the cellar cage in the final episode of series four.

In a form of in-joke, Barry Killerby appeared on the 8 May 2006 edition of Dead Ringers as a contestant on a sketch spoofing Deal or No Deal. He appeared again on the 29 May edition, this time in the Mr. Blobby costume.

On 27 January 2007 Mr. Blobby made an appearance on Harry Hill's TV Burp in an EastEnders joke, where character Dot Branning is in Pauline's kitchen, thinking an intruder is coming, grabs a saucepan as weaponry and resorts to the corner of the kitchen. The door opens and Dot says "You!" in disbelief. The camera cuts to the door and Mr. Blobby is standing there, starts screaming in his characteristic voice and proceeds to smash up the kitchen. This is instead of Joe, who in the episode was the one to come into the kitchen. Later in the episode he had a fight with Phil Mitchell, to decide who was best at not opening doors.

Mr. Blobby also made a surprise appearance at the Witnness music festival, Fairyhouse Racecourse, County Meath, Ireland in the summer of 2002. Blobby took to the stage and attempted to down a pint of Guinness. He stopped while the glass was still half full to the jeers of the crowd but quickly recovered to finish his pint and win the hearts and affections of the crowd back.

Mr. Blobby makes an appearance in the videos for Chelsea Smile And "The Comedown" by the band Bring Me The Horizon (played by lead singer Oliver Sykes).

Toys, Merchandising, and Blobby online

Around Christmas 1993, retailers came out with many types of Mr. Blobby merchandise. In addition to the CD or cassette tape single, you could purchase Mr. Blobby dolls, slippers, egg cups, condiment shakers, small cans of pink lemonade, towels and other items. Lledo even made a die cast Mr. Blobby pink bull nose Morris Van.

External links

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/ilove/years/1993/toys3.shtml

I LOVE MR BLOBBY