Charley the cat wasn’t the only popular recurring character of 1970s public information films. Another was Tufty the Squirrel, around whom the road safety-oriented Tufty Club was created.
Despite being a rather cute little squirrel, Tufty was a bit annoying in his ads, unfortunately, with neighbouring animal Willy Weasel always doing something silly on the roads and getting hurt, while Tufty primly did exactly what he was told by his mummy and thus survived the all-out carnage that seemed to follow him wherever he went.
Here, we learn the right and the wrong ways to approach an ice cream van. Poor Willy Weasel.
-
I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.
View all posts
