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No-one holds Emu any more. No-one even picks him up. His beak is slack, and his raffia unkempt. His foam legs dangle lifelessly from a chair. He lives out his days in the suburbs of Sydney after Rod Hull - the man who created him - died tragically from a fall. To look at Emu now, it's difficult to believe that he was once the darling of Light Entertainment, capable of attracting more than 11 million viewers. These days he's just an extra something for Cher, Hull's estranged wife, to dust every morning. "When Rod put on Emu" says Cher "that puppet would come alive. He would always do something naughty - like pinch my bottom. These days he just sits on his chair in the basement. I guess he misses Rod." |
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Emu actually had four brothers. Each one did a different job. There was an immaculate Emu, for personal appearances; an Emu with no legs, for close-up work; and an acrobatic Emu for jumping through hoops of fire. The other two were kept for spares. Hull carted them round in a battered suitcase, with a pot of yellow paint to touch-up their beaks, and a comb and scissors to tidy up their raffia. "That was my responsibility" says Cher. "And always at the last minute. Rod would say, 'Gosh, better check Emu's looking good'. " Today, only one Emu survives. "Maybe over the last few years, with a little less use, Rod discarded the others" says Cher. Emu is consigned to living out his life alone. |
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Before the fall, Hull had been leading an uncomplicated existence in the Brede Valley. There was talk of a comeback - maybe another Clover advert, or a Grotbags special. According to Hull's agent, the BBC and ITV were interested in developing new Emu projects. But Hull preferred to busy himself by baking bread, and making furniture polish with wax from his own bees. "He made his own elderflower champagne" says Carol Lee Scott, Hull's co-star in Emu's Broadcasting Company, "but called it fizzy fizz pop. I'm teetotal. It wasn't until I got into the car that I noticed he'd got me drunk. I spoke to him a week before he died, and he was so happy. He said 'I may not have the money any more, but I've got the quality of life'." |
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Hull's red-brick cottage needed patching up and making do. But he enjoyed the challenge. If the wind blew, he was happy to climb onto the roof and adjust his own TV aerial. In March, when Manchester United were playing Inter Milan, the picture started to flicker. "It came to a point where we couldn't see anything" says Oliver, Hull's son. "I said 'I'll go up and fix it at half-time'. But Dad said he would do it. There was no moon, but he didn't take a torch - he said he could do it blindfold." Hull slipped, and died immediately. At the funeral, Hull's best friend Bill Wallace tried to see the funny side. "Rod would have said, 'I should have known better than to climb up there - even Emus can't fly.'" |
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Over 200 mourners attended the service at St Paul's Church in East Molesey, Surrey, Among the relatives were his first wife Sandra and their children Debbie and Danielle. His second wife Cher, his stepdaughter Karina and his children Amelia, Oliver and Toby travelled over from Australia. Paying tribute were Rolf Harris, Timmy Mallet and Michael Parkinson. "I am very sad to hear of Rod's death" said Parkinson. "He was a very charming, intelligent and sensitive man, quite unlike the Emu. The Emu was the dark side of Rod's personality, and very funny, provided it was not on top of you. He was a gentle man and a very endearing companion. He made me laugh an awful lot and we will sorely miss him." |
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errrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I heard a joke about him and some washing detergent when he died.. |
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Psychologists still insist that Emu represented the violent side of Hull's psyche. Something undeniably strange did happen when the two became one. "If Emu had decided that Rod should jump off the top of a house" says Rolf Harris, "Rod would have done it. Sometimes Rod got carried away when he was operating Emu. I remember when we were doing a show together in Canada, and Emu suddenly flew into a rage. He knocked a picture right off the wall, and it hit Rod on the head. He was out of it. He got up - with Emu in position - and just walked off the set. Everyone was stunned. Later it transpired he'd been concussed. But he still managed to finish the show." |
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WASHING DETERGANT? |
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The memorial service was held on Rogation Sunday - a day of prayer for the fruits of the earth. The opening hymn was We Plough The Fields And Scatter. It couldn't have been more appropriate for such a committed gardener. "I remember when Rod was asked to take Emu to Las Vegas with Frank Sinatra " says Carol Lee Scott. "Rod said 'Sorry, I've just planted my spuds'. Frank's people thought it was a ploy, so they came back with a better offer. Rod said 'I told you, I can't leave my spuds'. So they offered him even more. All he said was 'Don't waste my time - or yours. I've got to look after my spuds'." The world will never know how Ol' Blue Eyes would have dealt with the wretched bird. |
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Rodney Hull was born on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. He took after his father, an eccentric man who spent his time applying for jobs for which he was uniquely unqualified. In his time, Leonard Hull worked as a carpenter, a shoveller in a glue works, an insurance salesman, and a plumber - on the strength of having acquired a plunger from Woolworths. But it was his bicycle repair venture that Rod remembered most clearly. Leonard's first, and last, customer was a district nurse with a wobbly saddle. He saw that the problem was a missing nut - so took one from her handlebars. "We all watched her cycle off" Rod said, "straight into a wall." The young Rod inherited that naive approach to the world. |
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yeah....aerial, arial? hmm |
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His best friend was little Bill Wallace. "We were asked to bring in something we'd got from Santa" says Wallace. "Rod brought a cowboy outfit, and I bought an Indian outfit. Rod said 'Would you be my friend for life?'. I said 'Yes'. And we were. When we were older we started doing a comedy act together. It was Rod's first real appearance on stage. I played the piano, and he played the violin. Except, of course, he couldn't play. The violin was hinged, and fell open to reveal a couple of mice. Before the show I'd go round the streets trying to find a cat to put inside the piano. I'd play a few notes and the cat would come screaming out - got a huge laugh, but nowadays you'd get bloody locked up for doing something like that." |
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B3N THATS DRASTICLY FUNNY! THE ONLY REASON IM POSTING THIS IS BECAUSE OF YOUR SHEPPEY POST! |
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Leonard Hull decided to move to Australia. After all, the fare was only £10, and he'd never been off the Isle of Sheppey. There he sold burial plots door-to-door. His wife played Rock of Ages on the electric organ whenever a customer expressed an interest. Rod joined the family in Australia and pursued a career in television. His first real success was Clot the station manager in The Constable Clot Show. One week, a viewer sent in a giant model egg - reckoning it would be of educational value for the children. Hull placed it on a radiator and said he was waiting for it to hatch. Three weeks later Emu was born. With its new star The Constable Clot Show topped the ratings, and Hull knew he had created something special. |
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So he took Emu to London. "Anybody who came from Australia gravitated towards International Artists because we were the people who made Rolf Harris successful" says Laurie Mansfield, the man who became Hull's agent. "Rod just turned up with this emu on his arm and sat down in my boss's office. We had never heard of him. The emu was looking round as Rod was speaking, and it suddenly went for my boss. Her desk was piled up with papers, and it parted like the Red Sea. Rod went across the desk to try and pull it back. The phone went flying. I was ready to call the police. Fortunately my boss thought it was the funniest thing." Within three days, Emu was on Saturday Variety with Larry Grayson. |
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Hull livened up all his performances with practical jokes - whether it was an exploding ink pen, or a rotting fish taped where no-one would ever find it. "I remember when we were in panto" says Carol Lee Scott "and Rod put these stink bombs under the legs of the throne where I was sitting. I just had to sit there and suffer the awful smell while the dancers did their big finale. It was agony. He was just a big kid, to be honest. There was this short-sighted xylophone player, who was too vain to wear spectacles. Rod attached a piece of string to the poor chap's instrument, and pulled it gently when he started playing. He never did understand why the xylophone kept going out of key." |
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Rod and Emu went on to bite the Queen Mother's bouquet. And wrestle Michael Parkinson to the ground. They were a double act, in the old-fashioned sense. "Rod and Emu really belonged together" says Wallace. "It's like they were part of each other. I remember when they did This Is Your Life. At the start of the programme, Rod was doing a children's show in a theatre. Eamonn Andrews arrived, dressed like a bloody great chicken. He took off the head of his costume, and, bloody hell, it was This Is Your Life. Rod was absolutely shocked. He just stood there - a total bloody surprise. But if you look closely, Emu still had movement. Rod was in a state of shock, so Emu actually stepped in and took over." |
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Hull knew that Emu's life was limited. The puppet only had three facial gestures. And could only perform for 15 minutes at a time - any longer, and Hull's arm went to sleep. "It was a one-trick act" says Mansfield. "An emu who attacks people. What we had to work out was 'How on earth do we keep this thing going?' I don't think Rod wanted to introduce another puppet. I don't think he had another puppet in him. Emu was what people wanted - so why give them something else? He might have found it frustrating, but he knew that Emu opened the door for him to buy a lovely house or whatever. He liked the income, but he would really have liked to have been a writer or a painter." |
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Towards the end there was talk of a rift between Rod and Emu. "I never felt affection for Emu" said Hull, in one of his last interviews. "He's just part of my work, like a word processor to someone else." The fact that people even imagined he should feel affection for a puppet is an extraordinary testament to the man's skill. It was just a business arrangement, according to Wallace. "Rod gradually wanted to get rid of Emu" says Wallace. "He was getting a bit too old to throw himself around the stage. He was happy to do a show with Emu, but when it was finished the puppet got thrown into the attic. Rod didn't want to know about Emu until he was forced to bring him out again." |
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Hull wanted to start spending more time with his family. "Dad was always a great help to all of us" says Oliver. "I had language difficulties growing up, and he would spend hour after hour in his study going through my homework." He liked to share his love of the English language. "He would deliberately come out with these long words in front of us" says Danielle. "He'd say 'That's really not salubrious'. I would agree. Then go upstairs and look it up in the dictionary. He hated us watching television, unless it was educational. I would just say 'It's a documentary, Dad', then it was okay. He felt we could learn so much more walking in the woods, or just flying a kite near the house." |
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When Hull heard that the local council was planning to turn Restoration House in Rochester into an office block, he was livid. It represented a great deal to him. Charles II had slept there on his return from France in 1660. And Dickens, one of his favourite authors, had written it into two of his novels - The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Great Expectations. Hull decided that he couldn't allow the garden to be cemented into a car park, and bought the place for £387,000. But as fast as he was restoring the west wing, the east wing was falling down. All 73 windows needed replacing. Hull was forced to open it up to tourists, with a tea room, and a little gift shop selling genuine Miss Havisham ballpoint pens. |
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Finally, Hull sold up. But when Restoration House was put on the market, it emerged that his financial affairs had been badly mismanaged. "When I first realised I was in trouble" Hull said at the time, "I went to the boys school. I owed them fees and told them I would do my best to pay them. I thought they would be sympathetic. I'd been to every fete the school had ever had, and helped them with their annual play. But even though I had discussed it with them, the school decided to sue me, rolling up on the day I was due to open in panto in Cambridge." The house was repossessed. The Bentley, the Jaguar and the villa in Portugal were sold off. Within weeks Cher had left, and taken the children to Australia. Hull was declared bankrupt in October 1994. |
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"It was a terrifically difficult time" says Rolf Harris. "Rod wanted to be seen like a well-known personality in the big house. Fundraising for the local school. Squire Hull, if you like. But then the money problems came along. And he was hurt by his so-called friends abandoning him. After that he was forever saying 'Thank you for still being there for me'." Hull had always insisted that the trappings of fame were unimportant. When Debbie had first left home, he sent her £5 baked bean money - he told her that, as long as she could afford baked beans, she would survive. Now he was buying baked beans for himself. When a friend arranged for him to live rent-free in Brede Valley in exchange for routine maintenance work, he moved in straight away. |
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In The Reluctant Pote, Hull's book of verse, there is a poem called Last Will And Testament. It says "I think perhaps in the best event I'll leave no will, just testament." That's exactly how it happened. Hull died intestate, and Cher inherited everything - including Emu. "Emu probably could make us money - look what happened to Sooty" says Cher. "My goodness, we could all do with the cash. But it would be really wrong to push anyone in the family into performing. We had thought that, maybe, one of the boys might be interested, but not now. Oliver is into antiques restoration, and Toby is into his computers. Nobody's put Emu on since Rod died. He just sits on that chair in the basement." |
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As a tribute to her late husband, Cher would like to see one of his unpublished novels turned into a film. His first novel tells of a factory worker who wants to fly. So he builds his own pedal-powered aeroplane in the garden shed. But on the inaugural flight he has a heart attack and crashes. The second novel is a study of friendship. When an old man dies, his two friends decide to turn a dream into reality - and walk the Pilgrims' Way. Wallace recognises the two friends in the book only too clearly. "Rod and I were always talking about walking the Pilgrims' Way" he says. "But we never did it. That's the last thing I said in my eulogy. 'God bless, old friend - and safe journey along the Pilgrim's Way'." |
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you taking the pish? =) this is a lot to read.. |
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What has four legs and goes, "Sssshhhhhh"? Rod Hull's television. |
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haha |
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i remember the joke that went around at the time : it's a bit sick tho..... q:what does rod hull wash emu with? a:aerial and bounce |
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