Emu (puppet)

UK Television career 1975-1989

During the 1970s, Hull and Emu achieved national fame in the UK with their BBC series Emu's Broadcasting Company. The duo subsequently moved to ITV where a succession of shows were produced in the 1980s centring around their ongoing war with Grotbags, a witch played by Carol Lee Scott.

Emu's New Series

The first episode of Emu's new series, simply called Emu, was broadcast on October 8, 2007. The plot centres around Emu and his owner, Toby (Toby Hull), a computer games designer as the pair move into a flat. However, there is a problem: Toby has to keep Emu a secret because of Ken Cole, a grumpy security guard with a severe disliking for animals (especially birds) who is always on the prowl. Toby's neighbours, two kids Charlie and Dani, help him to keep Emu a secret. Cole (referred to by Charlie and Dani as "Coley") always carries a little black book with him, and will put you in the book for even the slightest "offence" (such as skipping in the foyer).

Toby's other neighbour, Sophie, is the sole villainess of the show. She is an air hostess who becomes obsessed with making money off of Emu, but her plans always backfire on her. While Toby is oblivious to her true colours, Charlie, Dani, and Emu are fully aware of her evil nature. It seems Sophie's one great weakness is she can't bear to have anything getting stuck in her hair which will usually cause her to cry out, "Not the hair, not the hair!" before flying into a rage. She once tried to film Emu making a fool of himself so she could send the tape in to Animals Do the Stupidest Things, but Emu turned the tables on her, stole the tape, and sent it to People Do The Stupidest Things. Sophie later received a written complaint from her employer about her rude behaviour towards a passenger with a fear of flying, and was given twenty-four hours to turn over a new leaf. Emu learned of this, and after causing Sophie to lose her temper, quickly called her employer; Sophie was reduced to cleaning toilets.

At the end of the first series, Emu and Toby moved back to their own home in Australia. Emu helped to clean up the flat but released he will miss all the fun he had with his friends with Charlie and Dani.

The second series of Emu was first bradcoasted on the 13th September 2009 on ITV1 at 9.25am. In this series Toby had got a job at a cool summer kids craft cafe in Sydney. The first episode Apricot Antics was when Toby had a job interview in the cafe by having a taste test with his Apricot bars and then he'll get the job. Toby met Miss Kelly the lady who runs a cafe and has a true love with Toby. Miss Kelly was allergic to birds but didn't mind having Emu around the cafe. But, Toby as well met the strict Counciller called Leo Leach. As well as Ken Cole from the first series, Leo also has a serve disliking of animals especially wild Emus. He would close the cafe if he caught animals tresspassing into the cafe especially Emu who is in the the cafe most of the time. Also, he sniffs the cafe to see if there's any animals in the cafe. Just like in the flats from the first series Toby has to keep a secret from Leo Leach and Emu has to hide away from Leo. It sounds like it would be too much for Toby and Emu but with Emus help with his two new Australian best friends Sam and Georgia they would work as a team to not let Toby and Miss Kelly get into disaster.

The recent customer of the cafe, Miss Brownie is the villainess of the cafe who wants to make money out of Emu for example, sending him away to Bird Behaviour Boot Camp and trying to cook him into Emu soup in the cafes kitchen. But Toby is oblivious of her looks she doesn't know what bad things she does to Emu.

Emu painted a picture of Leo Leach and gave it to him, but he didn't know it was by Emu though.

It was shown on CITV with repeats until April 2014.

There was a Special Beak Week On the CITV Channel!