Sooty was an orange bear who starred in The Sooty Show with Sweep, Soo, and Matthew Corbett, the former of which he often got into mischief with. He owned a magic wand, which, when used, the children in the audience would sing "IZ-ZY WHI-ZZY, LET'S GET BUSY". (PROSE: It's Raining Gin [+]Jon Arnold, The Curse of Fanfic! (The Curse of Fanfic!, Obverse Books, 2020). Page 134.) Sooty also existed in Earth-33⅓. (COMIC: Doctor Who? 128 [+]Tim Quinn, Doctor Who? (Marvel Comics, 1987).)
Biography
On The Sooty Show
In the 20th century, at least relative to Sooty's native time period on Earth, he and Iris Wildthyme had encountered voice eating wombats and their green crystals on Metebelis Four. The wombats took Sooty's voice and stored it in their Cacophony of Doom. (PROSE: It's Raining Gin [+]Jon Arnold, The Curse of Fanfic! (The Curse of Fanfic!, Obverse Books, 2020). Page 134.) Sooty was in another episode where he drank ginger beer with Sweep, which caused controversy. (PROSE: It's Raining Gin [+]Jon Arnold, The Curse of Fanfic! (The Curse of Fanfic!, Obverse Books, 2020). Page 137.)
Meeting Iris Wildthyme
One day, Matthew Corbett, the host of The Sooty Show, planned to take Sooty, Sweep, and Soo to the seaside for the latest episode, although this particular episode lacked pictures as they ran out of money, and Matthew wasn't even able to get Sooty an ice cream as consolation. While waiting for the bus, Iris Wildthyme and Panda arrived in her bus. Flirting, Panda took Soo to a restaurant in Paris '62 in the bus, leaving everyone else to get to the seaside conventionally. Sooty, Sweep, and Iris began giggling as Iris told them they'll be having some fun today, so Matthew cut the episode to the advert break.
Arriving at the seaside, it began to rain so everyone headed into a chippy to order fish and chips, however one cloud followed them inside and began raining on their table. Iris tried to scold it for ruining the day, as rainclouds always do to British holidaymakers, but it appeared to just laugh in a cloud-ish sort of way, while more clouds followed the other patrons outside around despite their efforts to shelter themselves. Sooty came up with a plan, which he whispered to Iris, so she pulled a gin pistol out of her handbag, and Sooty used his magic wand — with the help of the audience who chanted "IZ-ZY WHI-ZZY, LET'S GET BUSY" — to give himself and Sweep gin pistols. The trio used the pistols to squirt the clouds, sending them into drunken sleep.
With the menace defeated and squirting Matthew as they consider him to also be ruining their fun, a montage of Sooty and Sweep having fun plays: they paddle in the ocean, but Sooty got knocked over by a wave, which Sweep found to be funny before he too was knocked over; they rode a donkey until Sweep scared it; and they purchased ice creams, but Sweep tripped over and his landed on Matthew's face. As the sun began to set, Panda and Soo returned, and Matthew stupidly asked them if they got the gin out of their pistols; they then began squirting him. Before it got too silly, Matthew ended the episode. (PROSE: It's Raining Gin [+]Jon Arnold, The Curse of Fanfic! (The Curse of Fanfic!, Obverse Books, 2020). Pages 134-138.)
In the War in Heaven
During the War in Heaven, (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Lawrence Miles, et al., Faction Paradox novels (Mad Norwegian Press, 2002)., etc.) according to the journal of Fu Manchu's son, after much debate, the Syndicate ordered the assassination of Sooty, "just in case he [talked]". This description was accompanied by an image of Sooty with a _target to his head. (PROSE: The Beasthouse [+]Lawrence Miles, Faction Paradox spin-offs (2008). Chapter 2, "Criminality".)
Other realities
In Earth-33⅓, an image of Sooty was on the wall of John Nathan-Turner's office, as he had been considered for the role of the Seventh Doctor, although the role was ultimately gained by Sylvester McCoy. (COMIC: Doctor Who? 128 [+]Tim Quinn, Doctor Who? (Marvel Comics, 1987).)
Other references
On Lethe, Melanie Bush named a Juggernaut "Sooty", seemingly after the bear. (AUDIO: The Juggernauts [+]Scott Alan Woodard, Main Range (Big Finish Productions, 2005).)
Behind the scenes
- Sooty is one of the main characters of the children's puppet television series The Sooty Show, along with Sweep and Soo.
- Within the show, Sooty is generally mute although he can communicate by whispering in an ear of a person. It's Raining Gin provides an explanation for this, positing that his voice was literally stolen.
- In 2014, for an official online poll about whether viewers preferred Sooty or Sweep,[1] the official The Sooty Show Twitter account released a promotional image of Sooty with his magic wand as Doctor Who in what appeared to be the Time Vortex, with a sort of title card: "Sooty Who?".[2]
External links
- Sooty at Sooty Wiki