In 1963 a whole new range of characters were put into production and a total of 226,252 Pelham Puppets were manufactured that year, making it a record year for the number of Pelham Puppets produced.

The new range of puppets included a mix of fairy-tail characters including a Wicked Witch, a Wizard, a King and Queen and a Giant and anthropomorphic characters, such as the Frog, an Elephant, the three bears and a big, bad Wolf.

Bob Pelham put a great deal of promotion into this range of characters with a full colour sales leaflet depicting 31 new characters. Some characters became more popular than others and many did not remain in production beyond 1968. Some of these are now considered ‘rare’ and sought after by collectors today and have been known to exchanged hands for thousands of pounds.

This page is still under construction so I’ll be adding lots more information soon about the puppets in this range, their designs and origins and why some of these Pelham Puppets are more sought after by Collectors than others.

 

The photo shows the “Animal Band” and a black & white photo of it was featured on the front cover of PELPUP NEWS in the Winter 1964 issue.

This was the 6-foot-wide centrepiece of a three-piece Animated Display Unit totalling 18 feet wide. It went on display in Harrods for the 1963 Christmas season and included all the new characters. 

Below are photographs of all 31 puppets, taken directly from the original sales leaflet. More information about the puppets in this range follow on, so please continue to scroll down the page.

The new characters were frequently featured in PELPUP NEWS over the next couple of years. Bob also commissioned Jan Bussell of the Hogarth Puppets to write a set of 12 plays featuring many of the characters from the range with illustrations by Vic & Ruth Granger who had also illustrated the puppets on the new, larger boxes.

Many were designed by Peter Carter-Page, he was a Canadian artist who had previously worked for the Walt Disney Studios. He had been living in Toronto before coming to England and made puppets for Jan Bussell and later worked for Bob Pelham, who gave him total freedom to produce the characters based on some of his sketches.

Some of the characters proved more popular than others and by the end of 1967 several puppets from the range were discontinued and offered for sale in the PELPUP NEWS magazine at half price.  Issue No. 14 included the 3 Bears, the Bull, Cow, Tiger, Dachshund, Hedgehog and Scottie Dog.

Less than two years later, they were offered again along with the Pirate Mouse, the Pig and Katie the caterpillar. Puppets from other ranges were discontinued and also offered for sale half price. In addition, many unpainted heads and other items were included in the Sale as shown above in PELPUP NEWS No 17 in August 1969.

The characters that survived, remaining in production were the King, Queen, Wicked Witch, Giant, Old Man and the Wizard.

The “1963 animal” characters that survived and remained in production were Mother and Baby Dragon, Wolf, Elephant and the Frog.

I hope you like what you’ve seen so far. More info about the 1963 Range of Pelham Puppets will be added soon.

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