h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

There was a discussion in the puppets forum about where this belongs ("People Dressed Up In Enormous Padded Suits"/ stop motion animation/ puppets/cartoon?) but I think the final agreement was SMA and I agree.
Originally broadcast on the BBC the Wombles were cuddly figures who lived on Wimbledon Common and tieied up everyones litter. There were a variety of characters, usually best recognised by their hats. The series was narrated by Bernard Cribbens.
The characters included
Great Uncle Bulgaria.. the wise womble of the tribe (cape, glasses and walking cane)
Madame Cholet.. the french accented mother figure
Wellington... I think he had the blue (school) hat
Tobermory... (brown hat?)... was he the inventor
Tomsk... (no hat?).. was he the bumbling one who despite his good intentions messed things up.

I seem to remember storylines revolving around sticky toffee papers and jam jars...

And of course the opening song (ahem...)
Underground, overground, wombling free,
the Wombles of wimbledon common ae we,
making good use of the things that we find,
things that the everyday folks leave behind.
dum di do dee, dum di diddle dum etc.

Well that's what I can remember off hand. I might go try to look up some more info.
Oh, and as PDUIES (see above) they had hit records and at least one (yeah OK I have one) album. I also seem to remember a cartoon version somewhere too... hmmm

Oh my God, now someones going to have to start a PDUIEPS page.
This could get confusing. In Rainbow for example, you have a PDUIEPS and 2 puppets. (Not to mention a wally called Jeffrey who must get laughed at in the street to this day.)
PDUIEPS must have the best of both worlds. They get paid well for arsing about on Childrens' telly but they can still go in the supermarket with their heads held high.

Anyhow, I looked around and found a couple of Womble links. I also found the names I had forgotten. Orinoco and Bungo (I would have remembered them eventually I'm sure).

http://www.designwest.com/Johanna/womble/womble_TV.html

http://www.uq.net.au/~zzsean/womble.html (including theme music)

Oh and I came across these details...

The Wombles ORIGINAL TV Series

Written by Elisabeth Beresford
Narrated by Bernard Cribbin
Music and Lyrics by Mike Batt
Edited by Martin Bohan
Decor and Animation by Barry Leith
Directed and Animated by Ivor Wood
The Wombles puppets designed by Ivor Wood for Filmfair

There WAS a new series made in 1998 which also had some new characters introduced.

and the list of original wombles is..

Great Uncle Bulgaria - Womble in charge
Tobermory - Fixit womble
Orinoco - fattest, laziest womble
Bungo
Tomsk - largest Womble
Wellington - smallest, shyest womble
Madame Cholet - chef womble

Yeah, Rainbow is a real crossover isn't it. Probably should go in 'puppets' because of George and Zippy. What was the name of the PDUIES (was it Bungo or Bungle or something?). Anyhow, who's going to start that converstion.

Do you fancy putting some words together NiallMc?

It was definitely Bungle. Not that I ever watched it of course.
Even Jeffrey was better than Rod, Jane and Freddy.
We'll have to work out a convention. Is it a PDUIES ir a PDUIEPS?
Are the ES always padded? And maybe it should be a PDUIEPSTCSSSC? For People dressed up in Enormous padded suits that can sometimes scare small children.