Back in the Sixties, BBC art department staple Tony Hart, the notorious
homosexual-style heterosexual, created a comic strip for Blue Peter entitled "The
Adventures Of Paki - The Indian Elephant". Paki’s adventures were often related
on the show, though we can’t imagine for a minute why no mention of him was made
during the show’s recent 40th anniversary celebations.
Some years later, Hart created
the less racially-sensitive Morph, a three-inch humanoid man formed from modelling clay,
whose speech was intelligible gibberish (rumours that Morph’s original name was
"Dipesh Patel" have been dismissed by Hart). Following a supporting role in
Hart’s kiddie art show Take Hart - which also spawned un-comedy caretaker Mr Bennett
(no relation to Mr Benn), who later won a presenting stint on youth quiz show You Should
Be So Lucky - Morph got his own series, which introduced us to his extended family.
There was his slightly
rougher-hewn cousin, Chas, Foily - literally a "foil woman" - and a number of
hard-bristled brushes which behaved in the manner of dogs. Of course, as his name implied,
Morph was capable of magical feats of metamorphosis. However, you’d think that Chas
would have eventually got wise to Morph’s japes, and not sat on the
Morph-coloured
chair, with the blinking eyes, which had suddenly appeared out of nowhere for
the 100th time. Chas was an idiot.
