https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/ en Tue, 11 Aug 2026 06:40:28 GMT vBulletin 60 images/misc/rss.png https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/ https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/310546-rip-jimmy-cricket Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:26:22 GMT Ladies and gentlemen, c'mere... (That just happens to be "Northern Irish" for Come Here, by the way)...

As I try to put a (Northern) Ireland accent on while I am writing this, I am very sorry to say that one of Northern Ireland's finest comedians and entertainers after Dennis Taylor, Eamonn Holmes and Gloria Hunniford, Jimmy Cricket has died at the age of 80. Cricket, whose act proved that one can be both funny and clean at the first time, was a huge favourite to many viewers on the television as well on the stage and holiday camps alike. Part of his act was to telephone his Mammy from a public phone box (remember them?) and send a verbal postcard to her. Cricket, born James Mulgrew, presumably took his stage name as a similarity of the name Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio.

I think that Jimmy Cricket and his act was more relatable to an average comedy act from the 1950s or 1960s in a Max Wall, Billy Dainty or Tommy Trinder sort-of way, although Cricket certainly translated his act into a 1970s or 1980s audience. I certainly appreciated him when he was on television just like millions of other viewers would have. He always said that he had an Irish logic when it comes to being clean and funny at the same time, and it's a pity that alternative comedians and those around today are not influenced enough by this.

And there's more...

Jimmy Cricket was also well-known for his black bowler hat; a white (or was it a red?) carnation in his lapel buttonhole; wellington boots, transposed with the L for left and R for right on the wrong side; even I had a pair of jelly shoes back in the 1980s with which I did that to them, probably parodying the great man! He did a few shows for Central TV in the mid-1980s which were named after his catchphrases. A few have been added onto YouTube in recent years, and one can easily say that Mary Whitehouse would have even found them funny as there were no dirty humour to be found in them whatsoever. I managed to get an autographed picture of the man himself; I think that he was appearing in Kent or somewhere like that in the early 2000s.

The very last This is Your Life which was transmitted the evening before Eamonn Andrews' death on the morning of Guy Fawkes Night in November 1987 just happened to be about Jimmy Cricket; quite fitting as both Andrews and Cricket were both fellow Irishmen! My late father said that Andrews looked a little bit peaky in that evening's edition at the time, and no doubt that Cricket looked a lot more perky! I watched one of the episodes of And There's More... on YouTube, and I just happened to notice in one of the comedy sketches that the walls had the same wallpaper as the Rovers Return pub did in Coronation Street between 1986 and 2008! I am sure that Jimmy Cricket would have found that amusing!

Thank you for the laughs and the clean fun - and there's more tributes and memories. I just wish that there was more fun and laughter from the man himself.
]]> Gone but not forgotten George 1978 https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/310546-rip-jimmy-cricket https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/310515-rip-bill-oddie Thu, 30 Jul 2026 23:07:11 GMT I briefly mentioned Bill Oddie's passing as a footnote in Ronnie le Drew's obituary thread, and as Heather mentioned in that thread, why don't I do one for Oddie? And so, here it is. Bill Oddie, comedian, actor, and birdwatcher has died at the age of 85.

I suppose growing up in the 1980s that I am more familiar with his birdwatching and environmental programmes rather than the Goodies; the original comedy series mostly ran on the BBC in the 1970s and moved to London Weekend Television in the early 1980s. Out of the original three Goodies, Tim Brooke-Taylor died from coronavirus in 2020 and only Graeme Garden is still alive.

By the 1980s he seemed to be focused on his birdwatching programmes (he did support the Green Party, so I heard, but only because it matched what he was well-known for). He was making guest appearances on various TV programmes such as Lionel Blair's team on Give us a Clue (briefly seen for around two seconds in the Liza Goddard-era opening titles circa 1989), and also the birdwatching theme went quite well while guesting with Rod Hull and Emu on EMU-TV in 1989. He lent his voiceover to a Sun Pat chocolate spread advert in the late 1980s.

Oddie presented one or two ITV Schools programmes just like Alan Rothwell who we lost earlier on this year; for Granada, he presented Time For A Story, a programme for five to seven year olds; another schools programme where ironically enough I only saw when I was off school. He also stood in for Derek Jameson on his BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show in around the August Bank Holiday in 1987. Just like a lot of C-list celebrities in the 1980s, he made regular TV appearances, and no doubt that he sat on the TV-am sofa and was a guest on Wogan at some point as well.

In many ways, I think of Bill Oddie in a similar vein as Davids Attenborough and Bellamy; those who did programmes about botany and zoology. He had a sort-of squeaky voice, not like Emlyn Hughes or Joe Pasquale, but reminiscent of people such as Labour MP Robin Cook and others.

Ironically, what I didn't mention in the Ronnie le Drew thread was that I am certain that Bill Oddie made a guest appearance on Rainbow at some point. I am certain that he did so in the 1980s?
]]> Gone but not forgotten George 1978 https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/310515-rip-bill-oddie https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/310450-rip-ronnie-le-drew-zippy-s-puppeteer-on-rainbow Mon, 27 Jul 2026 19:14:16 GMT I feel sorry for puppeteers when the puppet that they happen to be working with often gets more prominence on TV shows rather than they do (David Claridge who graduated from Mooncat to Roland Rat is a fine example of this), not to mention having to crouch down behind a desk so that they cannot be... I feel sorry for puppeteers when the puppet that they happen to be working with often gets more prominence on TV shows rather than they do (David Claridge who graduated from Mooncat to Roland Rat is a fine example of this), not to mention having to crouch down behind a desk so that they cannot be seen; but then again, by doing that, one tries not to spoil the illusion that the puppet they are working with is a real person or organism rather than a puppet (even if the mentions of: "Puppeteer" in the closing credits of the relevant children's TV show ruins the magical illusions to the younger viewer). No doubt that that puppeteers are almost like the viewers who watch their shows; except that they are heard and not seen. At least they can still be Equity members, the puppets as well hopefully. The thought of the puppeteer having their hands and fingers up somewhere unimaginable (which is the main explanation why they don't have legs) is something which we hardly ever concentrate on for a number of realistic reasons. I do believe that he was ambidextrious and operated both Zippy and George at the same time.

I always used to confuse Ronnie le Drew's name, (Zippy's puppeteer on Rainbow who has died aged 78, although one source says 79) with Danny la Rue because of their similarities in their names, and not because they are both (the puppets obviously) were a little bit camp. I also used to confuse le Drew with Roy Skelton who did Zippy and George's voice, and one obituary that I read prior to reading this one assumed that le Drew also did the Zip's voice; that might be the case but I always assumed that Skelton did that job, especially during the first half of the 1980s which was my "neck of the woods" age-wise. Skelton did Doctor Who's Daleks and le Drew didn't because Zippy and the Daleks sounded almost the same. Anyone asking why they never saw Zippy or George's legs on Rainbow, such as Children's ITV presenter Debbie Shore, (later Flint of the QVC Shopping Channel) was asked this question back in 1988 just after a Friday repeat of Rainbow, and not long after they had abandoned the monthly continuity presenter format idea, and Shore didn't know, but someone wrote to Rainbow Comic (a publication that I used to get between 1988 and 1993, fortnightly a la Private Eye and then weekly, and I was around twice the age of an average reader at the time), and asked the same question, whereas their response was that they were both shy (or that they had previously done modelling for Pretty Polly or Aristoc).

Zippy was Ronnie le Drew's bread and butter at the time; when Thames lost their franchise in 1992, le Drew was a victim of this due to Rainbow being axed (never mind the Recession going on back then); he was closer to travelling to his local Job Centre rather than the TV studios for work when the "pass the parcel" approach of biking or axing former Thames programmes in 1992 became more than apparent after the franchise loss. Even Granada got Sooty, and Anglia got the Cosgrove Hall animations courtesy of United News and Media. However, Tetra Films for HTV Wales managed to a couple of new series of Rainbow in the mid-1990s, and one assumes that le Drew was involved once again. At least he wasn't demoted to driving a taxi or stacking Winalot on shelves in Sainsbury's as an alternative to the DWP like his colleague Geoffrey Hayes had to resort to. I mentioned in Hayes' obituary in 2018 about my "deliberate school refusal, opting out of Art and PE lessons" affording me to see the Rainbow Show at the Nottingham Theatre Royal that afternoon at 2.00 pm GMT on Tuesday 21st November 1989; and I believe that although le Drew participated in the show, we didn't really see him for obvious reasons; a pity that I didn't book to see the second one a couple of years later. I believed that he also was "behind or underneath" Zippy in the Thames Christmas tape edition that was first shown on TV Offal in 1997.

A few Christmases ago, I received a copy of Zippy and Me, a sub-autobiographical book about why le Drew just happened to have his hands stuck up a cloth extension to a Liberal Democrat-coloured rugby ball / lemon sort of thing with teeth (because zips have teeth), and eyes that never even blinked or winked. It has been lying dormant on my bookcase just a few inches from where I am writing this, and I might finally get to have a read of it later on as a tribute. I also recommend that Rainbow book which was out in around 2002 and was written by Tim Randall (he is not to be confused with my former Gedling MP Tom Randall). Any Rainbow fan should have a copy of le Drew's book on their bookcase. Thank you Ronnie le Drew for bringing Zippy and George to life!

(By the way, off-topic I know, but I was sorry to hear about the demise of Bill Oddie as well - he did quite a few children's TV and schools programmes back then - now Graeme Garden is the sole-surviving Goodie).]]> Gone but not forgotten George 1978 https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/forum/culture/people/gone-but-not-forgotten/310450-rip-ronnie-le-drew-zippy-s-puppeteer-on-rainbow