stoatacide
When commenter Scott the Badger threatened me with Sergeant Badger in the thread below, it reminded me I probably haven’t posted about Tufty Fluffytail, the road safety squirrel. He was the mascot of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents from 1953 until he perished in a tragic road safety accident.
Kidding! But…I dunno…couldn’t you have come up with a better road safety mascot than the animal voted Most Likely to be Found Squashed on the Yellow Dotted Line?
Tufty mostly served as the DoBee to Willy Weasel’s Don’tBee. Gallant to his Goofus.
That poor weasel. They ran him over (repeatedly), dunked him in the river, fed him Mama Weasel’s headache pills. He was forever getting hurt. And when Sergeant Badger came along, do you think there was sympathy? There was not! There was Willy up by the the nape and given a good shaking.
For some Christmases, Tufty Squirrel memorabilia was sure to find its way under our tree. (Remind me to play you the album sometime. It’s one of my treasured possessions).
I console myself with the knowledge that a realistic Willy Weasel would have disemboweled and et the lot of them (not counting Sergeant Badger, whom he would have smothered in his sleep).
Ahhhh…that’s better.
Posted: October 20th, 2015 under britain, personal.
Comments: 10
Comments
Comment from dissent555
Time: October 20, 2015, 8:52 pm
I missed so much of this. Where the hell did I grow up anyway.
Comment from SCOTTtheBADGER
Time: October 20, 2015, 9:41 pm
I suspect that Sgt Badger may have been working paw in paw with Tufty, to pull a scam. Why does his squad not have Battenburg Markings, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battenburg_markings or a blue lightbar? He is using his own sedan!
Comment from drew458
Time: October 21, 2015, 1:33 am
I never saw Willy until this post. He’s great!!
Goofus and Gallant … we got them every month in that cruddy little Highlights magazine. Gallant was the worst fun-sucking buzzkill prissy pants tattle tail that ever lived. Goofus grew up to be a drummer in a heavy metal band and made millions, though these days the tremors and acid flashbacks from all that partying means he rarely leaves his 75,000 square foot Malibu mansion.
Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: October 21, 2015, 3:15 pm
Yeah, and Gallant is a poorly paid accountant driving an old car who is going to be shocked when his wife turns out to be into S&M… As the Dom, of course.
I much prefer Willy. He seems to have a bit of that Leave-It-To-Beaver naiveté about him and a sense of mischief without mean-spiritedness, which makes him likable.
For our British cousins who may not be familiar with the Beaver, here is an episode of the show pretty much picked at random….
Comment from Ric Fan
Time: October 21, 2015, 3:42 pm
So, he O.D.’d from drugs he stole from his mom’s purse??
Comment from Ric Fan
Time: October 21, 2015, 3:47 pm
Is Halloween very big in our area? Watching that BBC show on witch hunting. Sheesh!
Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: October 21, 2015, 4:11 pm
For some Christmases, Tufty Squirrel memorabilia was sure to find its way under our tree.
In your childhood in Tennessee? If so, how did your family get into British safety-swag?
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: October 21, 2015, 4:17 pm
In your childhood in Tennessee?
No, no…in our Tudor farmhouse in Sussex.
And yes, Ric…Willy Weasel OD’d on filched pills. Nice stories for Fifties lads.
Comment from David Gillies
Time: October 21, 2015, 4:56 pm
We still had the stop-motion Tufty road safety ads on TV when I was a nipper in the early 70’s. The number of times that stupid squirrel nearly got plastered by an ice cream van, I can’t tell you.
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: October 21, 2015, 6:50 pm
It’s odd, I somehow missed Willy the Weasel and his chums. I kinda sorta remember Tufty and various other attempts to stop kids getting smushed but W the W passed me by. There might be a lost decade somewhere….
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