What’s Up Doc?

1 9 9 2 – 1 9 9 5 (UK)
102 x 120 minute episodes

This Saturday morning magazine-style show for kids combined Warner Brothers cartoons, competitions, comedy sketches, live music and interviews with pop stars and TV personalities.

The show was presented by Capital Radio presenter Pat Sharp, Blue Peter girl Yvette Fielding and ex-Motormouth presenter Andy Crane who were accompanied by two animatronic wolves named Bro and Bro (pictured at right), created by Jim Henson puppeteers John Eccleston and Don Austen.

The comedy sketches that filled the segments between cartoons featured people like Frank Sidebottom (the late Chris Sievey); anorak-wearing buck-toothed cheese obsessive Simon Perry (played by actor Stephen Taylor Woodrow, pictured below); his creepy mate Colin (Peter Cocks); and Sam Sam (a hairdresser with a pumpkin for a head who was always accompanied by the Tubular Bells music from The Exorcist).

Simon Perry made the national newspapers when he went to Sotheby’s to bid for a 200-year-old cube of Tibetan cheese and ended up splashing out £1,000 for it.

Other characters included Mr Spanky and his tortoise, Naughty Torty; Billy Box; Pasty (a large cockney earthworm); Gaston LeGaston (a frog chef); Anthony the Aspidistra (a talking house plant with a Home Counties accent), and Cassie, a 3000-year-old woman.

Guests who appeared on What’s Up Doc? included Cyndi Lauper, Kylie Minogue, ZZ Top, Edwin Starr, Take That, Bananarama, Lulu, The Proclaimers, Boney M, The Human League, Graham Parker, Deacon Blue, Gary Glitter, The Beautiful South, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, Robin Williams, Natalie Imbruglia, Tori Amos, Level 42, The Lightning Seeds, Erasure, Pamela Anderson, Barbara Windsor, Mike Myers, MC Hammer, Angela Rippon, Frank Bruno, Sylvester McCoy, Hulk Hogan, Rowdy Roddy Piper and David Hasselhoff.

The show was made at the same TVS studios in Maidstone, Kent, as No. 73 before moving to the studios of Scottish Television in Glasgow for the final series.

Presenters
Andy Crane
Pat Sharp
Yvette Fielding
Simon Perry
Stephen Taylor