Otis the Aardvark was a puppet presenter on Children's BBC. Otis mainly presented the afternoon links on BBC One alongside the main CBBC presenters.
Otis was thought to be inspired from the 1992 Children's BBC idents which ended with a voice proclaiming "Tell that aardvark it's a wrap". These idents led to much speculation as to what the phrase meant. However, these idents were dropped just before the character of Otis appeared in late 1994.
Otis is said to have obtained his name from the OTIS Elevator in the CBBC building at BBC Television Centre.
Dave Chapman was the puppeteer. He also performed in a number of other Children's BBC programmes, notably as The Cat from Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow.
When Fully Booked moved to Sundays on BBC2, the extended Saturday CBBC was renamed Saturday Aardvark, with Otis being a key feature.
From 1996 - 1999 Otis presented the morning and afternoon links on Nickelodeon's CBBC block named CBBC on Nick. The programmes on CBBC on Nick were: Fireman Sam Playdays William's Wish Wellingtons Monty the Dog Noddy's Toyland Adventures Postman Pat Tales of the Tooth Fairies Spider Oakie Doke Teletubbies Spot the Dog After leaving CBBC in late 1999 Otis appeared on a puppet based quiz show before the puppet was finally laid to rest, with the announcement given claiming that the character had gone to work at the BBC canteen, although Otis made appearances on other CBBC shows including Insides Out and Live & Kicking and Clever Creatures until 2001. Otis was replaced by another puppet called Emlin the Gremlin, who proved to be short-lived.
On 28 December 2007, Otis reappeared on a special 'puppet' edition of The Weakest Link for the BBC. He was voted off in the second round.
In a 2009 interview BBC Presenter Kirsten O'Brien revealed that she has the Otis the Aardvark puppet and once used it unsuccessfully to impress a date.
On 1 April 2010, Otis appeared on the ITV2 show Celebrity Juice.
Chapman's other characters include "Scratch" in Cbeebies show Nuzzle and Scratch, Vinnie The Ferret for CBBC's Xchange, Matt Lucas' Singing Potatoes from Shooting Stars, Tiny the Giant Hamster from The Saturday Show and Tiny and Mr Duk's Huge show,Riff the dog from Carrie and David's Popshop, Windy the rat from 'Space Pirates' and most recently Guppy the Elephant in the feature film 'My Last Five Girlfriends'
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Famous quotes containing the word otis:
“That food has always been, and will continue to be, the basis for one of our greater snobbisms does not explain the fact that the attitude toward the food choice of others is becoming more and more heatedly exclusive until it may well turn into one of those forms of bigotry against which gallant little committees are constantly planning campaigns in the cause of justice and decency.”
—Cornelia Otis Skinner (1901–1979)