SARA AND HOPPITY
ROBERTA LEIGH'S
About
This rare photo 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, who would later go on to provide the voice of Marla and Cassie in the last 13 episodes of Space Patrol. She would also voice Jimmy Green and share other guest character duties with her fellow voice artists.
Other voices in the show were provided by Ronnie Stevens, who played Hoppity, as well as providing Shaggy's bark. Other male characters such as Mr Brown, Georgie and the Junk Man were also provided by him. Later, he would 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!
The existing pilot film – almost certainly not the first televised episode – seems to feature the recognisable voice of actor David Graham for the part of Mr Brown. While David Graham himself has no recollection of this – it would have amounted 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. Jack 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.
Roberta Leigh's scripts had a high moral and educational slant, and Associated-Rediffusion requested alterations to several episodes. Two songs had to be altered, something which displeased Roberta Leigh as Sara's Song had featured in the pilot and had at that time been deemed acceptable. Other alterations included Sara using scissors without permission and Georgie being sick due to overeating. These were considered unacceptable as it was felt they set bad examples to the young viewers.
Associated-Rediffusion paid £700 per episode. These were delivered in batches from August 1961 through to March 1962, and the contract included worldwide rights for distribution, though correspondence from Roberta Leigh shows she was unhappy with the arrangement, having received no payment for this. A resolution did appear to be reached soon afterwards 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. The series ran for an entire year, with only a single break – for Christmas Day - and the last episode was aired only a few 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 publicity in any of the TV listings magazines, possibly, a reflection of the problems Associated-Rediffusion had raised with several of the series episodes. Certainly, other children's series in the Small Time slot were 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 non-existent. This may have been due to the rights being held by 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. In the London/Associated-Rediffusion region, Sara and Hoppity was bought and shown as part of Small Time. In some regions, it formed a 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 was made available commercially for the first time, as an extra on the Space Patrol Complete Series DVD Set in the early 2000s. It is now available on YouTube in both B&W and enhanced and restored colour formats. (See Videos page.)
In 2002, Sara and Hoppity fan and original website contributor, Jeremy Clark, discovered that a 35mm print of the 46th episode, Gorgey Georgie Goes Visiting, was held by the British Film Institute/National Film Archive. This can also be seen on the Videos page.
One minute of silent footage from Aunt Mathilda's Hat also exists, as well as private sound recordings of some episodes.
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.
(This is the brief outline of the series taken from the original promotional brochure.)
Sara And Hoppity was based on a series of books written by Roberta Leigh. Published 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. All were 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.
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 young girl, whose parents run a toy hospital. 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.
Acknowledgements:
Much of the content for this website has been recovered from Shaqui's excellent but now-defunct 2003 Sara and Hoppity website.
We owe a huge debt both to him and to Jeremy Clark for his contribution to the creation of that site.
Thanks also to Malcolm Batchelor for his comprehensive listing of the Small Time programmes.
My eternal gratitude also to Iain Petrie for his enhancement and colorisation work on both the pilot and episode 46 of the series.