Sara And Hoppity - An Overview A series of puppet stories highly popular with children about a girl, Sara, and her doll. The doll has one leg shorter than the other - hence the name Hoppity. - Brief outline of series from promotional brochure. Sara And Hoppity was based on a series of books written by Roberta Leigh (right). Appearing from 1960 onwards the four titles were Sara And Hoppity, Sara And Hoppity Make New Friends, Sara And Hoppity Get Lost and Sara And Hoppity Find A Cat, published by Pelham Books. Two further titles, Meet Sara and Hoppity and The Big Book Of Sara and Hoppity, were published by Daily Mirror Books in 1962. These would also appear to have been available in other English-speaking countries such as America, Canada and Australia, but at least two of the books were translated into French as Sara Et Clopinet Partent L'Adventure, and Sara Et Clopinet Trouvé Un Chat. The Sara And Hoppity television series featured Sara Brown, a typical young girl, whose parents run a hospital for toys. Her favourite toy was Hoppity, a clockwork doll which could be wound up to do his hippity-hop dance. Hoppity had been found in a Goblin Ring, and being a Goblin Toy was frequently naughty, getting Sara into all sorts of trouble. This rare photo (left) from the publicity brochure shows the main characters. From left to right we have Mrs Betty Brown, Miss Julie, an old lady who also lives and works in the toy hospital. Georgie Guzzler, a fat spoilt boy with a whining nasal voice who eats a lot and doesn't like Hoppity, with Shaggy the dog. Seated on the swing is Sara herself holding Hoppity, and on the right is Mr Brown. Most of the characters had songs, at least one of which would feature in each episode. Other characters in the series included Sara's Aunt Matilda, Jimmy Green, a friend of Sara's, Georgie's mother Mrs Guzzler, and the Junk Man, who found Hoppity in the first place. Sara was voiced by Ysanne Churchman (right), who would later go on to play the voice of Marla and Cassie in the last 13 episodes of Space Patrol. She would also voice Jimmy Green and share other guest characters duties with her fellow voice artists. The other voices were provided by Ronnie Stevens (left), who played Hoppity and provided Shaggy's bark! Other male characters such as Mr Brown, Georgy and the Junk Man would also be provided by him and later, he would also go on to provide the voices of Husky, Slim and Professor Haggarty (among many others) on Space Patrol. Actress Dera Cooper voiced Mrs Brown, Miss Julie and Aunt Mathilda. She recalls all the episodes being recorded in a single day, in order to keep costs to a minimum! However, the existing pilot film (which is probably not the first televised episode) seems to feature the recognisable voice of actor David Graham (right) for the part of Mr Brown. While David Graham himself has no recollection of this (which would amount to less than an hour's work recalled over forty years ago), those who have seen the print are adamant it is his voice. Unfortunately, the cast are not credited on the pilot so the speculation continues. The puppets for Sara and Hoppity were made by the late Jack Whitehead, who had previously worked on Muffin the Mule and The Invisible Man television series. He sadly passed away in 2002. Jane Phillips and Jane Tyson, who had previously worked on the second series of Torchy The Battery Boy, did the pilot film. For the duration of the series, the puppeteers were Sally Bussell, and Joan Garrick - who would go on to Space Patrol and virtually all the later Roberta Leigh puppet series. You can read more about the production team here. Curiously, for a series which already had a high moral and educational slant owing to Roberta Leigh's scripts, Associated-Rediffusion requested alterations to several episodes. Two songs had to altered, something which Roberta Leigh was unhappy about as Sara's Song had featured in the pilot and been deemed acceptable! Other alterations included Sara using scissors without permission and Georgie being sick through overeating! These were considered unacceptable and setting bad examples to the young viewers. You can read a more detailed account here. Associated-Rediffusion paid £700 per episode, which were delivered in batches from August 1961 through to March 1962, and the contract included world-wide rights for distribution - though correspondence from Roberta Leigh shows she was unhappy having received no payment for this. A resolution did appear to be reached soon after though, with her receiving 15% of the overseas royalties. Sara And Hoppity first appeared in early 1962 as part of the children's weekday afternoon television slot Small Time, and ran for an entire year of one series, with only a break for Christmas Day - the last episode airing scant weeks before Space Patrol made its debut in the Midlands and North. It was repeated in its entirety throughout 1965/66, and possibly again over 1967/68. Regrettably, Sara And Hoppity received little (if any) publicity in any of the TV listings magazines - possibly (though this is speculation) a reflection of the problems Associated-Rediffusion had with the series. Certainly, other children's series in the Small Time slot did get publicised. Look Westward, which covered the Devon and Cornwall regions, gave episode titles (some of which differ slightly from official titles - see the episode guide) while Associated-Rediffusion itself only did so for the repeats, with most others simply stating the series name and an occasional brief synopsis. Merchandise for the series, with the exception of the books, seems not existent. This may be due to the rights being held by the publishers Michael Joseph and not Associated-Rediffusion themselves, owing to the first books having been published prior to any negotiations for the television series. Sara And Hoppity continued to appear in the UK regions for several years, with TWW screening episodes in 1966 and Southern, Harlech (HTV), Grampian and Tyne Tees purchasing the series in the early 1970s. While in the London/Associated-Rediffusion region, Sara and Hoppity was bought and shown as part of Small Time, in other regions it formed part of other children's shows, such as Tinker and Taylor in the Midlands and Wales. Overseas sales, from 1966 onwards, included New Zealand, Hong Kong, Malta, Rhodesia, Cyprus and Zambia. The pilot episode still exists, having been stored with the entire series of Space Patrol and several other film prints. This film is now available commercially for the first time, as an extra on the Space Patrol Complete Series DVD Set. In 2002 it was discovered by Sara and Hoppity fan and website contributor Jeremy Clark that a 35mm print of the 46th episode, Gorgey Georgie Goes Visiting, was held by the British Film Institute/National Film Archive. A minute of silent footage from Aunt Mathilda's Hat also exists, as well as private sound recordings of some episodes. On to the Sara And Hoppity Episode Guide With thanks to Jeremy Clark, Simon Coward and Kaleidoscope.org, Ysanne Churchman, Dera Cooper, Ronnie Stevens, Alex J Geairns, the Associated-Rediffusion archives, the Independent Television Commission, the Hammersith & Fulham Local History Centre and The Whirligig TV site The Sara and Hoppity Website would welcome any information on the series for future updates.