To be shocked at finding Rolf Harris in ds' Biff and Chip book

[Paulacarl]

Reading "Poor Floppy" (ORT, stage 2) with DS1 tonight. V shocked to find that when "poor Floppy" got taken to the vet, Rolf Harris was there in the consulting room (as in Animal Hospital.) Have I just got an over active imagination??

DS starts school in September so we've still got all this to look forward to (and, based on this thread, I am really looking forward to it ).

But who is Floppy in the OP's picture? Please tell me it's not a nickname for "Rolf" or that the pills are for him...

Thought experiment

Floppy is the dog but the children's names are all more like pet names so it will take you a couple of levels to remember who is who.

Euphemia I had one and binned it.

Thoughtexperiment.... I thought my own DC had sworn when announcing loudly in the library that she knew who the author and illustrators were. Serves me right for not listening properly.

It was published in the 90's when Rolf did animal hospital. It's not him, but it's clearly meant to look like him. You can't expect every Rolf Harris reference to be removed from history.

I saw Maggie Thatcher in one recently...'the Important case' they love to do little cameos. Some are really rather old though. I can never believe they have lasted in the mitts of 5 year olds for over 20 years!

Alex Brychta has a few self drawn cameos too.

The bearded guy in the red hat who always appears in the background of everything really reminds me of Steven Spielberg!

Re the discarded glasses and the bones in the pictures, I was told that it's an in-joke. I think the author/illustrator is always losing their glasses (as are lots of people) and you are supposed to think "Ah! That's where my glasses are." The bones are for Floppy to find.

The ginger bloke in the background who is always popping up as a caretaker / builder etc often appears when the children are in jeopardy and helps out (often unnoticed). Again I was told he's supposed to be a guardian angel or such like, who sorts things out in the background.

It's a long time since my DCs read the books, but the adult jokes in the illustrations (like why is there a sight chart in an animal hospital) were the only things that kept me going through the tedium of "Floppy, no! No, Floppy. Floppy. No. No. No. "etc ad infinitum.

Chanandler
That is Alex Brychta he draws most of the books and supervised the cartoon shows production.

Yes you should bin the animal hospital books. We had a reading book with Lance Armstrong in it too!

Come on, these were printed such a long time ago - the dcs won't have any clue about who he is so I would just ignore it.

Does anyone else see the nosey bastard neighbour in the Biff, Chip and kipper books ?

no, what's he look like?

Thanks *Switchitoff"!

At least this is just a picture that children can't see the problem. I found a book in the school collection the other day called "Judy saves us from the Gypsies" It was printed early 70's and was basically about a dog called Judy being set on some "gypsies" to make them leave where they were parked.

As I recall the author/illustrator put himself into all the early books. He was a bit of a RH look alike. If you look through the books you will find the beardy man in all sorts of odd (and at times slightly sinister) places, like peering over the neighbours fence. In the school ones he is the caretaker.

You will also find an abandoned pair of glasses in all the old books, the kids search for them as they read.

This is a picture of Alex Brychta :