Torchy the Battery Boy is a British children's puppet television series, the second to be produced by AP Films (APF), which first aired on the ITV network between 1959 and 1961. Created and written by author Roberta Leigh, it had music by Barry Gray, art direction by Reg Hill and special effects by Derek Meddings. Featuring string puppets created by Christine Glanville, the series depicts the adventures of the eponymous boy doll, who has a battery inside him and a lamp in his head, and his master Mr Bumbledrop (voiced by Kenneth Connor). Two series of Torchy, each comprising twenty-six 13-minute episodes, were made. The first was produced by APF, on a budget of £27,000 (about £ in ), between October 1958 and April 1959. After APF declined to make a second series (opting to create Four Feather Falls instead), Leigh, who retained the rights to Torchy and its creative elements, commissioned Associated British-Pathé to produce a further 26 episodes. The first series premiered on ABC Weekend TV on 11 January 1959, followed by Associated-Rediffusion on 23 February 1960. The second series premiered on Associated-Rediffusion on 23 August 1960. The show is one of several children's television programmes from the mid-20th century to exist today in its entirety, without loss or damage. Both series have been digitally remastered and released on DVD.

Plot

Torchy, the Battery Boy, was created by Mr Bumbledrop, a lonely old toymaker who spends the majority of his days tending to his garden, where the neighbourhood children play. Torchy has a lamp on his head, and when he pushes a button on his jacket and utters a mysterious phrase, the light illuminates and gives Torchy magical insights. Mr Bumbledrop also builds a cardboard rocket ship, which allows the boy to soar through the heavens. The brightest star in the night sky is Topsy Turvy Land, home of all of the abused and neglected toys that once belonged to naughty children. There, the toys spring to life and animals have the ability to speak. Everyone is at home in this mysterious world, with its lollipop fields, cream bun trees, and chocolate puddles. However, Torchy frequently goes to earth to visit Mr Bumbledrop, get replacement batteries, and return with naughty children who need to learn a lesson. In Topsy Turvy Land, humans shrink to the size of toys, and various children are subjected to the same horrors that they unleashed upon their playthings.

Characters

Numerous discrepancies in the spelling of names exist throughout the various Torchy materials.

Earthlings

Topsy Turvians

Episodes

The show premiered in the Midlands in 1959, but it didn't premiere in London until 1960, where it aired consecutively for 52 weeks as one series. Writer Roberta Leigh obviously wrote several shows for the second series to bridge gaps in the first season's stories (denoted below). Presumably, these were aired on London television in the proper chronological story sequence, but on DVD, the shows were presented in production order as two separate series. TV listings of the era were primitive and online listings feature conflicting airdates, so the tables below list the two series without airdates, just as they appeared on DVD, in an effort to avoid inaccuracies.

Series One

Series Two

Production

Creator Roberta Leigh and producer Gerry Anderson had previously collaborated on the puppet show The Adventures of Twizzle, which was so successful that they were asked to do another show. The pair were able to negotiate more money nearly double what was spent on Twizzle, which afforded them the luxury of bringing more elaborate visuals to the screen. Leigh churned out her scripts quickly, reportedly writing all 52 episodes over a total of 26 days. With her eight-year-old son in mind as the show's target demographic, Leigh set out to write an adventurous show, claiming that she was not pushing to include morality tales, but morals naturally came through her stories. As with Twizzle, Leigh devised recurring songs for many of the characters and would hum her tunes to composer Barry Gray, who was tasked with translating them into musical chords. Puppet maker Christine Glanville began developing the look of Anderson's later "Supermarionation" shows, crafting the puppet bodies from wood, and sculpting heads with movable eyes and mouths, as well as adding thinner strings to make them less visible on film. Made in her garage, crafting the toys was a family affair, with Glanville's father creating the bodies, her mother sewing the clothes, and Christine sculpting the heads and putting finishing touches on the dolls. The crew began tinkering with automatic lip-sync on two minor characters, and Glanville thought thin rubber might be the way to create the mouths, so she sent her father on a quest to buy condoms from various local vendors. This idea wound up being infeasible because the thin rubber was prone to breakage and paint would not stick to it, so they later switched to chamois leather. Reg Hill and Derek Meddings created three-dimensional sets using cardboard cut-outs and wood, with a higher degree of detail than they could muster in Twizzle. Their Torchy sets included an elaborate miniature town shaped like fruit, with trees, shrubs, and rocks made of coal, as well as fully furnished miniature interior sets. They could not afford a studio, so the production was set up in the ballroom of the Islet Park House, a mansion in Maidenhead on the banks of the River Thames. Unfortunately, a lack of space caused problems. The stage area was only about 20 square feet, with a cramped bridge that spanned the length of it for the puppeteers to perform on When the carpenters turned on their saws to create sets for the next day's shooting, the puppeteers were unable to sync to the audio playback. Complicating matters, the river flooded that winter. Although the mansion's interior remained dry, the only way to get in and out of the location was by rowboat. "When the river overflowed, we would stand on the ballroom's impressive veranda and watch the water rush past us below," recalled set dresser Bob Bell. "It was really quite frightening!" Filming of the first series concluded in April 1959. The show was popular, garnering the attention of an up-and-coming band named The Beatles, who performed the title theme song live at The Cavern Club. At the start of 1969, Paul McCartney even riffed a portion of song during the recording sessions for the band's final album, Let It Be.

Merchandising

A small assortment of merchandise was issued during the show's run, most notably a series of books by creator Roberta Leigh, including an annual "Gift Book" from 1960–1964. Many of the featured stories were short adaptations of her scripts. Other merchandise included the board game Torchy's Race to Topsy Turvy Land, a children's playsuit which was packaged with a cardboard Torchy puppet, a pocketwatch, and a Torchy marionette by popular toymakers Pelham Puppets

Books

Comics

Torchy appeared weekly from August 1960 to August 1961 across 52 issues of Harold Hare's Own Paper. The majority of characters were featured in the single-page comic strip, but Flopsy was referred to simply as Rag Doll (and she had normal eyes, as opposed to buttons), there was no Mr Bumble-Drop, and Whirly and Ena never appeared. Torchy did occasionally venture back to earth to contend with Bogey and Bossyboots (whose name, like PomPom's was condensed to one word). In 1968, Leigh was the editor of "Wonder," a weekly comic book that was sold at Esso petrol stations. Each issue featured a tie-in coverstory for her subsequent show Wonder Boy and Tiger, as well as a strip titled Bossy Boots. The character bore no physical resemblance to the puppet (she sported glasses and wore her hair in a ponytail ), but like her Torchy counterpart, Bossy Boots loved to tell everyone what to do.

Harold Hare's Own Paper

Roberta Leigh loosely adapted her own stories from numerous episodes for the untitled strips, but many of the details were altered.