Little Gems

Little Gems - Snippets from the past

Paper Play with Itsy and Bitsy

Click here to listen to the start music (459Kb mp3 file)

Click here to listen to the end music (388Kb mp3 file)

Paper Play with Itsy and Bitsy

Paper play was a wonderful childrens program shown in the and produced by Thames television. Each episode lasted around 10 mins and concerned the presenter and two fluffy spider puppets. The presenter in this case was Susan Stranks from Magpie fame. The two spiders were called Itsy and Bitsy and spent the whole show watching and taking part in the creation of models, paper objects and drawing with the aid of Susan. As soon as it was required the spiders appeared with glue, glitter and paper all prepared to make whatever the show as about.

The background was entirely black to hide the puppet master who was also in black and who controlled the hand puppets. The two spiders were brilliant and you could never see the hands or shapes in the background - no matter how hard you tried. Itsy (the red spider) had a deep gruff voice (click here to listen) whilst Bitsy (the yellow spider) had a much gentler voice (click here to listen). Itsy was very much the lead spider with much more confidence than the quieter slower Bitsy.

If I have these the wrong way round, please let me know and I will change it. There were well over 150 episodes of the show produced by Thames and the filming went on from the late 70s to early 80s.

Itsy and Bitsy Susan Stranks Itsy