SARA AND HOPPITY
ROBERTA LEIGH'S
Perspective
"Dear old Hoppity, naughty Hoppity
There is no toy more naughty than he!"
Sara Brown's parents own a special shop that's not really a shop at all. It is in fact a Toy Hospital, where folks can bring in broken toys for Sara's mother and father and Miss Julie to mend. The Browns live above the little shop, with Miss Julie above them, in the attic room. One day, an old man brings in a odd broken toy to sell. It's a curious wind-up toy boy with one leg which the man apparently found in a goblin ring. He's called Hoppity, and Sara is immediately smitten with him. Mr and Mrs Brown want nothing to do with the old toy, but Miss Julie comes to Sara's rescue. She gives her sixpence to purchase Hoppity from the man. Sara then scrubs Hoppity down, and her father finds a spare leg for the toy, though it's a tad shorter than the one he's got. Miss Julie gives Hoppity some clothes and Mrs Brown gives him two shiny beads for his eyes. She also cuts some of Sara's own hair to put on Hoppity's head, and Miss Julie gives Sara an apron with a big pocket on the front so she can carry the chap around. And now Hoppity can be wound up and set free, to dance his "falling over dance" and sing his special "Diddly-Dee" song, and to lead Sara off to all sorts of high jinks and trouble because, you see, Hoppity is a very mischievious thing indeed...
"He'll sing and he'll dance, all over the floor
And when he stands still then you wind him some more!"
Sara and Hoppity had previously appeared in four books by series producer Roberta Leigh, with the first written in 1960. And this TV adaptation was Roberta's first new series produced without Gerry Anderson and AP Films. They had parted company after completing the first season of Torchy the Battery Boy. Roberta had successfully snagged AP's Arthur Provis during the breakup, and he took up the director's chair here.
And what a show it is! Beneath the series' apple-pie crust there is a very dark filling. Hoppity is a spiteful sprite. He's the devil who sits on your shoulder, egging you on, leading you into trouble. There's that strange goblin past, and the old man wanting rid, and - goodness! - just look at him in that screen grab at the top of this page. He's got no eyes, he's bald and legless. He is a totemic pagan creation who wouldn't look out of place in an Amicus film. And once he's reborn he's infused with a twisted, fiddling, kind of glee. Well, okay, it's easy to exaggerate, but many folks of a certain age will tell you that Hoppity left them sleeping uneasily in their beds at night.
Of course, this isn't all spite for spite's sake. Take Aunt Mathilda, who is the recipient of Hoppity's very first bit of mischief. She's a haughty old thing, and it's very easy to side with Sara when she cuts the flowers off the woman's hat and puts them in a vase... but that doesn't make it right, does it? And Hoppity's cruelty knows no bounds, because poor Sara is left hopelessly exposed when she tells the adults what happened. Why, she can go straight to her bed, without delay. But it was Hoppity that drove her to the wicked deed... Fiddling-diddling old Hoppity....
Cross, Bossy & Cruel
Spiteful children are Roberta Leigh's speciality. Sally Cross (Twizzle), Bossy Boots and Bogie (Torchy), and Sara Brown all exhibit a particular penchant for brattish and cruel behaviour. It gives these three series a particularly keen edge that stands them apart from their contemporaries.
The series all played on the ITV network in direct opposition to those singsong "Watch With Mother" productions on the BBC, and it feels almost as if they are deliberately subverting that rather privileged nursery-bound format. Yes, this is what those spoilt brats are really like, folks. They're wanton, and just as cruel as can be!
