Dancing with Flapper

Many years ago, in a studio in Tuart Hill, there lived a character named Flapper.

If you were a kid growing up in the 80s in Perth you might remember Channel 9’s Flapper and his show Flapper’s Factory.

Yesterday, during an outside radio broadcast for Activ at McCallum Park, we saw Flapper return to the stage in a one elephant show. Seeing him brought back memories but how could we have ever prepared ourselves for the absolute thrill of being invited to dance with the little blue elephant?

The video below shows fellow 98.5 Sonshine FM announcer and broadcast engineer Ash Wright, Flapper and myself dancing up a storm.

I did a little research on Flapper and found this recent article at Perth Now. Here’s part of the article talking about Flapper.

Jen Dunstan, creative director of production house, Elephant Productions was at Channel 9 with the Young People’s program department which was created by fellow director Keith Woodland in 1977.

“Keith came to the station with drawings of Flapper the elephant – so he is the father of Flapper,” said Ms Dunstan.

“This new creation was opposite to Fat Cat and Percy Penguin who were quite tall and on Channel 7.

“Some of the little children were finding these characters large and ominous in height, so he created a character which was more kid level.

“The head of the animator for five year-old Flapper lived inside his top hat and operated his eyes – the first time ever in Australia that had a character with moving eyes.”

Flapper became the Nine mascot and had his own show Flapper’s Factory, then came Flapper’s Super-heroes and at the demise of this program came Clash of the Creatures.

I love my job. Where else would you get paid to dance with a blue elephant?

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