Added: 4 years ago
From: auspete
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  • Wow certainly brings it all back!

  • My local radio station is talking about this !!!

  • Excellent puppet control. Almost a dying art these days.

  • i used to always watch Twizzle- i loved it so much

  • Twizzle looks like a chic no???

  • Hmmm... was there a 1960s version? I remember Twizzle but not as a string puppet..... (very vague memory mind you)!

  • @Marfysarfy I think you are right. I remember Twizzle being a much darker character and also, if memory is correct, a woodland creature that resembled wooden sticks come to life. Hiowever, I remember this version too.

  • @Marfysarfy

    Yes there was definately a sixties version. Any clue anyone?

  • Brilliant

  • Fantastic! I haven't seen this in over 50 years-ahh the memories!!

  • @hartnell1000 i cannot believe how i watched these shows as a kid the accents are so middle class lol

  • who's she calling funny looking - that little girl looks a bit odd herself

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  • that little girl was a spoiled little bitch

  • @86compgeek I think she may have been a feminist...lol

  • I remember watching this when i was 6 in 1957, if only things were as good now.

  • The shopkeeper must have made an impression on the makers of 'Psychoville' - he reminds me of Mr. Lomax!

  • Twizzle and Torchy. Wow was a nostagla trip. the were the best.

  • Try to show this today and every mind-foaming Marxist and their useful idiots would be waving court orders and cryiing on "Trisha" about how "offended" they were. It's time we all said "tuff! Go be offended, you sad little jack off." PC only works if we cooperate.

  • Waaaah ! Me no like creepy Jack in the Box! Me too scared to look and me is 56 now.......!

  • Waaaaaah! Me no like creepy Jack in the Box! Me still too scared to look and me 56 now!

  • Even back then it was happening. Even the puppet white girls were possible hits for the local black dude. How prophetic.

  • The golliwogs' probably outnumber the teddy bears there now!! LOL

  • @FORTBAXTER1 LOL!

  • really

  • I was watching "Dam Busters" the other day on TV.

    One of the pilots had a dog he called it nigger.

    Just imagine trying to own a dog these days and naming it nigger.

  • @drb7777 I wish people would do it, it'd help take the taboo out of what are really just arbitrary sounds we assign too much meaning to.

  • @auspete WOW really??? You must not know much history.

  • @auspete It's not really arbitrary when the media used it to villianise a race and to justify murders. It's all about context really so I can't see it being a problem being used in the movie but the way it was used in the media was very sinister indeed. Thanks for the upload by the way :)

  • @drb7777 when i was a kid my mum named our cat nigger only coz of the colour...how times have changed, why does everything have to be racial be it colour or otherwise...political correctness gone mad.

  • Ha, with all this "political correctness" they would not even let you use the word gollywog in public - now the PC Police are trying to edit the word nigga" out of Hunckleberry Finn!

  • Oh its brilliant. It was my favourite as a child in the late 50's. It looks so funny now though. Im very pleased to have found it on YouTube

    suemartin

  • all my nightmares in five minutes...i was terrified ..and i still find twizzle scary

  • I was mad for Twizzle when i was a kid. There's nothing racist about this, the Golly is just another toy in the shop and has nothing to do with race. Sooner my kids watched this than xfactor

  • I am so glad I have just found this!! I remember it was a programme I loved and then it vanished!!

  • Lovely to see this, was my favourite and hardly anyone I know remembers it. I was born in 1960 so it was going for a few years by the time I got to watch it. Oh how I longed to have arms likeTwizzle!

  • Gollywog is not racist, it's part of our childhood. I was shopping in Sassafrass in Australia and bought two back for my children, they were selling like hot cakes, why is it we can buy them there and not here what is wrong with people, Bring back the Gollywog

  • THanks for a quick trip down Memory Lane, This was one of my favourites! Like was so much simpler in those days :)

  • I remember this as a child, is it me, or do'es the gollywog sounds a little like bungle

  • I am sure it was the Goons that did the voicover for this. This brings back memories, i used to sit enthralled at this, Torchy the battery boy, Four Feather Falls, the list is endless. I am 57 now, and if i knew then what i know now my life would have been so different, i wouldnt have a Stroke for starters caused through smoking.

  • Long live twizzle grew up with this as a kid great stuff. The reason why they got rid of Golliwogs off of jam jars, is because black people were using them for bus passes

  • @guitarman128x 1 - that's a tired old joke

    and

    2 - it's not funny anyway

    and

    it's racist so go away. 

  • @JediNana2 It was very funny. Get your self-righteous head out from up your arse.

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  • @JediNana2 If you are going to send replies for me to receive I suggest you stop being such a winging coward and leave your comments for everyone else to see, rather than making sure I receive the response and you deleting it from here.

    In response to your deleted comment, I don't care if anyone "makes a pop" at 'my race. What's funny is funny. Contrary to your claim, no he has not removed the joke.

    God, I so hate humourless, self-rightous, self-hating white liberals.

  • @CrankCase08 I removed it because I'd got part of it wrong as I was looking at the comment below that he had removed, rather than the tasteless, racist joke above. And for the record, I am not a coward, nor a "self-hating (I rather like myself, actually) white liberal". I simply don't find racist jokes funny. Unlike you. Saddo.

  • @JediNana2 I'm hardly a saddo when I have sufficient sense if humour to find a decent joke funny. With your limp-wristed attitude you'd fit in well with the current crop in television management that has wrecked television and culture with its ridiculous and nauseating political correctness.

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  • Gerry Anderson was a genius!

  • I wonder this is the only ever episode still available for viewing. What happened to the other episodes?

  • @CrankCase02

    According to Wikipedia, this is the only surviving episode, though gerrybriley, a commenter on IMDB, reckons he has 20 on Betamax

  • this was one of my favourites when I was 5yrs old. Such a long way from Toy story but brings back great memories

  • I was born in 1959 and remember watching this as a child.

  • Look closely. I can see the strings.

  • I believe that this was the first programme aired on commercial television on 29th October 1957. This is one of the programmes I vividly remember from my childhood.

  • I can remember watching this as a kid, back in Clapham London, there wasent that many of them, Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha those were the days, brings back all my childhood memories, that and Woodentop, Bill and Ben and Hoppity oh yes and Fireball XL5 wow thats was pree Thunderbirds

  • Twizzle is a boy? It looks like a girl! I love these video's.

  • As a child we NEVER put a 'colour' to a toy - a golliwog was simply a golliwog. It is YOU pc people who are racist and bloody minded

  • Nice to see this. My favourite was always jiffy the broomstick man though twizzle was a bit of a goody goody haha

  • "I'm Twizzle, and i DO" "Oh what DO you do?" 1:00

    It's very funny, even the little sentences.

  • Did Michael Jackson really look like that in 1957???????

  • Thanks for uploading this! It's a shame this is the only surviving episode (out of an original total of 52), but at least this one episode gives us an idea of what the show was like.

  • Great program. I remember seeing this when I was a kid. By the way, Golliwogs are still available in the UK. Check out the toy shop in Bourton on the Water for just one outlet. Two fingers to political correctness!

  • This used to scare me silly as a kid. I think I can see why. Didn't know it was a Gerry Anderson show before. A Eureka moment!

  • i remember in 1966 watching this in london as a kid..lol

  • Whenever my parents wanted to severely traumatize me, they would seat me in front of this programme. Twizzle himself was weird - apparently a boy doll but with a squeaky voice and long hair. Those extendable legs with diagonal stripes made me nervous as well. But when that jack-in-the-box took centre stage I really freaked out - a human head grafted onto a caterpillar body! The storyline was creepy - wandering around in the dark and meeting a scary cat - 7:37 gave me nightmares for weeks!

  • I loved this as a kid !

  • Happy days of childhood. Truly a bygone era....when a Teddy Bear was indeed just that and of course a gollywog was known the world over as a "gollywog". Oh! bring back the days before political correctness and twaddle.

  • @TheWhitehall erm it is racist

  • @gramule Good Golly....I do not share your view. I do not wish to sound patronising, but would I be correct in thinking, that you are of the "new" age way of thinking? ie Political Correctness and Health & Safety Rules. The 1950`s and 6O`were, where childhood was concerned an "innocent" age.I wish it were the same today.

  • @TheWhitehall in the time it was innocent yes, but in the more enlightened era that we are fortunate to live in, we can see that golliwogs are racist. i hope that this helps.

  • @gramule I certainly acknowledge that we now live in enlightened and tolerant times. Which is a good thing. But, I rue the passing of days when one could call a "spade a spade" without feeling as though one had made an outrageous comment. Political Correctness [in my opinion] is often patronising,pandering and does not always welcome direct and blunt factual/honest views incase they offend the sensitive. Anyway, I remember the days of Twizzle and Noddy and his pals with a smile.As we both do.

  • @gramule I don't see it as what you describe as 'political correctness' just concerned that any language, image or whatever which patronises, or disenfranchises folk in any way, deeply, deeply offensive. In the 1950's/60's, in the arena of mental health/disability, we were still using words/phrases such as: mentally feeble, spastic, mongol, thank goodness we are much more enlightned now about using language which alienates folk.

  • I don't see it as what you describe as 'political correctness' just concerned that any language, image or whatever which patronises, or disenfranchises folk in any way, deeply, deeply offensive. In the 1950's/60's, in the arena of mental health/disability, we were still using words/phrases such as: mentally feeble, spastic, mongol, thank goodness we are much more enlightned now about using language which alienates folk.

  • I Loved Twizzel! God bless xx

  • Definately on in Melbourne in the 60's. This, with Torchy and Space Patrol are my earliest TV memories. Thanks for this window back to a simpler time!

  • Auspete, this was definately on Australian TV in the 60's. I recall watching this and Torchy as my earliest TV experiences, along with Space Patrol. I was in Melbourne then. Thanks so much for your window to a forgotten world.

  • Thanks mate, a load of Brits I know are hugeley impressed. Thank you...sharing to my FB. Thank you again for the share:-)

  • I have spent most of my adult life asking my friends if they remember TWIZZLE...."naah you made him up!" has been the answer.... well here he is TWIZZLE!!!... proof that he was not just in my imagination.... HURRAH!!!! thank you so much!!

  • Unless this series was repeated later, I actually remember watching it when I was 3 years old, as well as 'Torchy the Battery Boy', 'Supercar' etc. (Oo-er!)

  • This brings back memories,i grew up with this programme and can still remember the songs!

  • What wonderfull memories of my chilhood.

    Definetly not Racist

  • I'm 15 and I found this for my mum and she remembers twizzle and the golliwogs, and the golliwog badges you could get with the tokens. People are too politically correct now. They shouldn't have got rid of golliwogs! I want one <3

  • loved this

  • I was brought up with golliwogs on TV, in storybooks, and in toy shops. To me they were just a kind of toy, not representations of black people.

  • Bloody hell...haven't seen this for 40 years

  • @marcuscato

    Me too!

    Things were of a different quality in those days!

  • what happy memories

  • very pc with the golliwog

  • This is great :) I am a baby boomer and it WAS aired in Australia in the early 60s on the abc I think Wish you included the Twizzle song I remember one line "If you got the measels or if you got the mumps" Cant remember the rest:) I was about 5 or 6 at the time Great trip down memory lane thanks:)

  • i find these 50's children shows quite unsettling

  • This series gave me the creeps even when I was a little kid. Something about the shadowy lighting and definitely creepy voices (especially those deep ones).

  • Lets start a campaign "BRING BACK THE GOLLYWOG". Come off it remember sitting at Breakfast and eating Robertsons Jam, whilst wishing you had enough tokens to send of for a Golliwig Badge. Racist it is not, nostalgic it is.

  • @geminimanuk no no no it is racist...look at the doll...very very dangerous to say that its nostalgic

  • Thank you for this nostalgic visit to the early sixties when we were children.

    But, I cannot find Jiffy the Broomstick anywhere. Can anyone help?

  • do you know that character used to scare the crap out of me as a kid..

  • whats a goliwag?

  • The introduction tells you that the golliwog was new. How is the bear's comment racist? It was a fact. Would you have said it was racist if it had been the other way round? Come to that it is a bear and a golliwog. They are toys, not differing human races.

  • @hawkmoon03111951 gollywogs are a manifestation of racism, end of.

  • IM OFFENDED !!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • And I'm disparaged!

  • Phone Call to Harriet Harperson. Compensation please!

  • I was thrilled to find Twizzle on youtube. I posted it to my sister for her 59th birthday pressie. I would love to find a recording of The Red Grass (sci fi episodes circa 1959). Anyone know of any recordings still in existence?

  • This one was made the year i was born , remember watching but sadlly not the story lines but i agree with another posting of feeling safe.....suppose thats similar to all generations.

  • Glad to find this, I dont know anyone who remembers this programme so thanks for puting this on. Does anyone have the opening credits. Strange how they give a rosy glow these programmes. Suspect because they made you feel safe

  • Great stuff, i saw Twizzle for the first time in the early sixties as a two or three year old. I used to think Twizzle was a girl, well what do you expect he had a womans voice. Half the things said in those days would not be allowed today, as an innocent child so what!! 2/6d that went a long way back then, when on earth did she get that money from?

  • I must have been one or two years old when I saw some of the Twizzle episodes on TV. I just remember how scarey they were... so dark and spooky. Almost nightmarish. The puppets faces with fixed expressions. All the same, lovely to see this.

  • I'm so pleased to find this, I didn't think there was any video material for Twizzle. Thank you for posting.

  • Wow this is great stuff..what a lost art form. Twizzle I thought was a girl....freaky puppets...but the thing from the box was the scariest...a head on a caterpillar body!!! SCREAM!! LOL.

  • So, the narrator says that Footso has a black nose...that's a pretty light shade of black!

    Seriously, though, thanks for posting this! I've always wanted to see this show.

    (And remember, kids, if you want 20% off a toy, threaten to stamp your feet!)

  • am i the only one seeing all t he euphemisms?

  • my dad just rememberd this tv show and i think it is very diffrent to the tv shows now ..and im 13 and my mum collects golly woggs but i think the golly wogg on this program is a bit freaky!!

    x

  • I was looking for Jiffy The Broomstick Man (remember him?) and ended up here instead. Great memories though, I'm off to find Hoppity now.

  • He used to terrify me! And wasnt there a spooky cellar full of broken toys?

  • You will find it under Sara and Hoppity. It's Sara who probably terrified you, she looks as if she has come straight out of The Excorcist.

  • My first memory, literally, is Twizzle. His neck and arms stretch out so he can climb over a wall. I was about two years old probably and it scared the hell out of me. It still looks a weird thing now.

  • If you don't watch this video and just listen to it, it sounds like an old radio program.

  • How Brilliant is this, I can remeber all the words to Footso song, I am 51. Jiffy used to scare me a bit too. And at last found Torchy the Battery Boy and Sara and Hoppity- diddlededum, diddlede de.

  • I can still remeber the song as well and yes early 60's. I am looking for Tinker and Tucker (alan Taylor),

  • I thought all the footage of Twizzle was gone! (deteriorated and the like) Fantastic to see kids TV like this still around.

  • Thanks for posting this... I remember watching it in 1963! I can still remember Footso's song. How sad is that!

  • Hehe - I remember watching this in the fifties - how bizarre!

  • How well spoken children's progs were then. Not like the sreet slang you get now.

  • This episode ran in the mid-sixties as well. At least in the London region. Tx for uploading.

  • Footso's voice was done by Eartha Kitt !

  • Actually, she was voiced by Denise Bryer, Alan.

  • TWizzle was produced by AP films (Gerry anderson) - the precursor the Supercar, XL5 and of course THUNDERBIRDS!

    Twizzle is voiced by Nancy Nevinson

  • You wouldn't see the Golly Wog now, sad really as loving such a doll as a child would probably be a good thing for stopping racism.

  • My wife collects Golly Wogs - they are still around if you look hard enough.

    Seeing some younger people`s reaction to them is I think quite sad - after all they use to be such a common doll. Older generation individuals don`t have a problem with them. Also, let`s not forget the Golly Wog metal badges one could obtain from Robertsons - the jam & marmalade maker.

    Long live the Golly Wog !!!

  • I saw this, I agree that it is more imaginative than US children's cartoons now. Just the puppets etc are somewhat crude. But it makes you wonder what will happen next.

  • Goodness I remember watching this - love it - but there IS something quite spooky about Twizzle. Excellent - thanks so much for posting.

  • Oh my God! I can't believe I am watching that awful toy again! He used to scare the living daylights out of me. I was only four years old at the time, but the worst character was the broomstick man, who gave me nightmares!

  • Auspete, great post, thank you very much. This was a favourite show, and I love the quality. If you ever get to London, a few stubbies on me mate.

  • oh wow, i never heard of this program til now :) i like it... why aren';t kids programs like this anymore? kids nowadays have no imagination

  • its not that kids dont have imaginations anymore ,its that their not given the chance to express them ! innocence is gone im afraid ,when i was young things like trapdoor and button moon were'nt far off this style still !

  • your 22 so you understand what i mean !

  • Why aren't kids' programmes like this any more? Because the Cultural Marxists took over society (leaving the economy to free-market fundamentalists).

    This programme is actually brilliant! (Of course, the shallow, literal-minded children of today would point out the technical crudity - visible strings, etc. They have no souls or imagination, as you say.)

  • More please.

  • i grew up watching this and torchie and i had a golliwog in black rubber that i used to bite into, not sure i,d do that now

  • "You can tell HE hasn't been here long!" These gollywogs came here to do the work that other toys wouldn't do!

  • Oh Snap! lolz!

  • Found this on Youtube so my mum could remember when she was 3 or 4. she was amazed to see it again, and we all laughed watching it and seeeing how much things have changed! ;)

  • how was this obtained and why no episode with jiffy the broomstick man

  • Well it was the 1950s things were very different then - we didn't need drugs to enjoy ourselves in those days

  • the "gollywog" sounds like spike milligan!

  • My God, I remember all these so well, and I was only 4 years old! Does anybody else remember Jiffy the Broomstick Man - or is it just me?!

  • I can assure you there have been stupider things than this on TV. Have you watched lately?

  • You are right, this person probably thinks Big Brother is good!

  • I too was terrified of this as a toddler. It has a nightmarish quality about it. Still good see it again after forty years!

  • It still scares me !!!

  • This programme used to scare the living daylights out of me.

  • The first thing I ever saw on TV and I was 4 at the time and we didn't have a telly, we were allowed to watch it on a neighbours TV.

    Many happy memories

  • memories

    thank you

  • Thanku for this I love these such memories

  • Nancy Nevinson, the voice of Twizzle and the narator, is having her 90th birthday on 26 July 2008. Thank you so much for posting this, we are putting together a presentation of her life's work, and the clip showing she is worth 2/6 will be hilarious

  • Screened in New Zealand in 1960 in the days when telly started at 6pm and finished at 10pm lol. What a weird buzz to see this again!

  • great stuff.recall this and muffin the mule/bill and ben/jiff the broomstick...oh dear youve got me started now!!!even talking about a golliwog all so innocent...imagine the uproar nowadays!!

  • How wonderful. Took me back to my childhood. Thank you for bringing back so many lovely memories.

  • Fantastic now when I tell people im not Twizzle if I show them this they will understand!I remember watching this when I was small Happpy Days.

  • It wasn't just limited to the Uk, it was only shown in certain ITV areas. Don'r recall it on Granada,

  • where did you find this?

  • It came as an extra on the Space Patrol box set.

  • how wonderful to see torchy and twizzle again it brings wonderful memories of childhood many thanks

  • Thanks for uploading this!! I remember it but many people think I'm making it up when I describe it, now I can show them!! brilliant!!!!

  • I would hate to break down on some desolate country road and stumble accross this village in the dark. On the other hand, I would Definitely pay 2/6d for Twizzle!

  • Good luck! I bought a Twizzle Pelham puppet at a toy fair yesterday myself for £120! That's inflation for you, I suppose!

  • So, 2/6 is £120 in today's money? Can we blame Thatcher?

  • 2/6 (i.e. 2 shillings and sixpence) or 12.5 new pence is probably worth the equivalent of about 4 or 5 pounds and nowhere near £120!

  • thank you once again for the memories never thought i would see these again i cannot take my eyes off of them, like going back in time blow the house work today there wonderful.

  • This is priceless, many tks for posting it - I can remember watching this & Torchy

  • Hoppity was cooler

  • Wow never thought i would see twizzle again , and i remember jiffy the broomstick man and his song . bloody marvelllous, thanks for the memorys

  • i thought I'd never see Twizzle again. Oh what innocent days?

  • this was amazing I really thought I was the only person who remembered Twizzle. I even had a Twizzle doll as a kid.. Thank you so much for posting this!

  • OMG!!!! I'm nearly 50 and nobody has ever known what I was talking about when I spoke about Twizzle and as we lived in uganda at the time I saw it I thought it must have just been something on there!! and I always thought Twizzle was a girl too!! lol ty for posting this vid xx

  • fo twizzle my nizzle!