Over the years the Central Office of Information (COI) enlisted numerous celebrities to dispense enlightenment to the calamity-baiting masses. Michael Palin warning us about the dangers of driving too close to other vehicles in a downpour. Ernie Wise guiding Glenda Jackson through the process of donating blood. Alvin Stardust, Joe Bugner and others delivering reproving lectures to children reckless enough to disregard the Green Cross Code. Few, though, were hotter than Basil Brush, a felt fox whose distinguishing characteristics included his Terry-Thomas-like vocals, his uproarious laughter (typically at his own jokes) and his signature cry of "Boom! Boom!" At the time Basil landed his own public information film in 1976, he was riding high as one of the elites of UK television, with his variety program, The Basil Brush Show, showing no signs of stopping after eight years. If the public was going to listen to any public figure sound off on the all-important subject of seaside safety, it was the buck-toothed vulpine with the penchant for cheesy puns. He was certainly cooler than Tufty, at any rate.
Basil Brush got his start in 1962, in a television series detailing the struggles of a down-and-out circus troupe, The Three Scampies (I approve of the title), before graduating to being a supporting act for magician David Nixon. The wisecracking fox proved so popular that in 1968 he received his own spin-off. The actor and puppeteer behind the magic was Ivan Owen, a man so committed to preserving the illusion of Basil's reality that he fervently avoided doing any publicity work as himself. The Basil Brush Show had a prosperous run that spanned all of the 1970s, but as the 1980s set in Basil's empire started to crumble and by the end of the decade his relevance had all but receded, giving way to fresher puppet creations like Roland Rat and Gordon the Gopher. I'll confess that he played no part in my own early childhood, with my personal introduction to the character coming via an advert for Angel Delight dessert mix that he'd appeared in in 1995. He would, however, enjoy a major comeback in the 2000s with a retooled version of The Basil Brush Show, which followed the format of a family sitcom and saw Michael Windsor taking over from Owen, who'd passed away in 2000. Throughout his career, Basil worked alongside a lengthy line-up of human second bananas, including Rodney Bewes, Billy Boyle and, in the 2000s series, Christopher Pizzey, with actor Roy North (or Mr Roy, as Basil called him) serving as his sidekick at the time of his foray into PIF territory.
The two minute short, "Basil Brush and The Airbed", sees Basil and Roy savouring a day of sun and sand when Roy proposes going for a ride out to sea in his inflatable dinghy, followed by a dip in the waters once he's gotten beyond the waves. This causes their jovial banter to shift to the serious topic of inflatables - objects of buoyant holiday fun, or treacherous deathtraps threatening to lure swimmers into a salty blue abyss? Basil gives us the lowdown, and despite a comical misunderstanding over Roy's intentions when he speaks of "blowing up" an inflatable canoe, emerges as the voice of reason. Basil might be a joker, but he's no fool when it comes to respecting the briny.
As public information films go, "Basil Brush and The Airbed" is firmly at the non-traumatising end of the scale. Basil and Roy don't get into any hazardous situations, they simply talk about the various ways in which things could go wrong, and Basil is ultimately at pains to stress that the inflatables themselves are not actually the problem, just people's usage of them and lack of consideration for the precarious nature of the waters. The terrifying scenarios related - being swept away from an inflatable dinghy you have foolishly vacated, or drifting out to sea atop an airbed because you weren't paying attention to where it was headed - are softened by the characters' arsenal of wisecracks (with Basil fiercely jousting to retain sole joking rights), and the agreeable chemistry between Basil and Roy, which has the effect of framing the discussion less as a lecture than as a spot of good-natured sparring between friends. Indeed, the most startling moment might be when Roy abruptly breaks the fourth wall, a minute and forty seconds in, to deliver one warning directly to the viewer, prompting Basil to glance at the camera more reservedly, as if reluctant to outright implicate the lesson's intended recipients.
The PIF rounds out with a suitably light-hearted moment, with Basil opting to stick to the shallower regions of a nearby paddling pool, but having trouble summoning his rubber duck Horace, who is averse to getting wet under any circumstances. We're a long way from the nightmares of "Lonely Water", even if the threat in question is much the same.
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