Bertie the Bunyip


Bertie the Bunyip was the lead puppet character on the popular American children's television series The Bertie the Bunyip Show in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which ran from 1954 to 1966. He was portrayed as a brown-colored character with the ears of a kangaroo and a duck-bill-type snout. For children he was cute and friendly, getting into harmless situations.
Created by Australian Lee Dexter, Bertie was a bunyip, described by Dexter as "a cross between a bunny, a collie dog and a duck billed platypus."
Bertie's enemy was an aristocratic fox by the name of Sir Guy de Guy. A newspaper article published shortly after his death featured an interview with Lee Dexter, who noted that Sir Guy was named after the ubiquitous TV Guide - but this turned out to be just another bogus attempt to cash in on the notoriety of Dexter's puppets, and there was a protracted struggle for ownership of the puppets. Dexter suffered from Alzheimer's Disease in his later years and was confined to a nursing home in southern New Jersey; he was unable to shed any light on his puppets including who should get them.