Paddington Bear
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Paddington Bear is a fictional character in children's literature. He appears in 11 books by Michael Bond.
Paddington is an anthropomorphised bear, and in the illustrations resembles a teddy bear rather than a real bear. He wears a duffle-coat and wellington boots.
Like Jack Worthing in The Importance of Being Earnest he was found on a railway station (Jack Worthing being found at Victoria). To be precise he is found at Paddington in London, coming from "deepest, darkest Peru" and with a note attached to his coat reading "please look after this bear, thank you". The Brown family takes him in and the stories follow Paddington's adventures and mishaps in England. He is notably fond of marmalade sandwiches. He is a clumsy bear and always get things wrong, however he is known to "try so hard to get things right". The fictional Brown family live at the address of 32, Windsor Gardens which is close to the Portobello Road.
First published in 1958:
- 11 novels, 2 collections of short stories
- many appearances in picture books & other publications
- merchandise (such as stationery aimed at the school market).
- the original television series shown on the BBC and produced by Michael Bond and FilmFair, first broadcast in 1975. This series had an extremely distinctive appearance: a mixture of stop-motion puppets moving in a three dimensional space in front of two-dimensional backgrounds, which were frequently sparse black-and-white line drawings. Animator Ivor Wood also worked on The Magic Roundabout and Postman Pat. The series was narrated by Michael Hordern, who was later knighted, although probably not just for that reason. In the United States, episodes aired in between preschool programming on the Disney Channel throughout the 1990s, and also on Nickelodeon in the 1980s when the channel was called Pinwheel. This series won a silver medal at the New York Film and Television Festival in 1979 - the first British animated film to do so.
- a second television series, produced by Cinar Films and Hanna-Barbera, first broadcast in 1997 and consisting of pure, traditional two-dimensional color animation.
Street traders on the Peruvian shores of Lake Titicaca now offer tourists home-made finger-puppets of Paddington. There is also a stall at Paddington station selling Paddington Bear merchandise.
Paddington's influence on fashion has been limited to his hat. At Paddington's first appearance, the upturned brim at the front of his crush hat was irretrievably gauche. By the end of the 1990s it had become de rigueur among Sloane Rangers.
External links
- http://www.paddingtonbear.co.uk/
- BBC Paddington theme tune (http://www.cobweb.nl/wcoumans/paddington.wav)
- Template:Imdb titlede:Paddington Bär