Later Appearances
In 2002, Zippy appeared in the "My Mate / I hate" advertising campaign for Marmite in the UK. In the TV commercial he zipped up his own mouth when confronted with Marmite, thus confirming his hate for the product.
During in-character interviews on shows such as SMTV Live, Zippy is often portrayed as even more loud mouthed and crude than normal. An infamous "Christmas tape" of the series also displays cruder humour from the entire cast.
On 4 August 2007, Roy Skelton was interviewed via telephone by Russell Brand on his Radio 2 show. Brand and his associate Matt Morgan asked Skelton some questions whilst in the persona of Zippy. But Skelton brought the interview to a halt when Brand asked him "Zippy? What do your genitals look like?" Skelton, whilst holidaying in the south of France, announced whilst in the voice of Zippy that he had to go and promptly hung up the phone. This left Brand and Morgan to speculate whether they had offended Skelton.
In December 2007 Zippy and George appeared on a puppet special of the Weakest Link hosted by Anne Robinson which was originally broadcast on Friday, December 28, 2007 at 18:00GMT on BBC1. Zippy answered each of the questions asked to the pair, most of them being incorrect, they were eventually voted off in the third round. During a between-rounds interview, Robinson zipped up Zippy.
Zippy also appeared in the 2008 BBC Kudos programme Ashes to Ashes with George.
Zippy appeared twice in a 2008 episode of Harry Hill's TV Burp. He featured in an edited scene of EastEnders, appearing at the door after a character had been seen undoing a large number of zips when searching someone's handbag. He later appeared in a montage of television figures saying the word "cataracts".
In 2009, Zippy and George appeared on Peter Kay's The Official BBC Children in Need Medley.
Zippy made an appearance on the seventh series of Celebrity Juice as the celebrity from the Glamourerer Magazine Head section of the show.
Zippy made his final appearance at the inauguration ceremony of the Caterpillar Children's Centre in Woodbridge, Suffolk on 6 July 2010 where he gave a controversial speech and was soon after zipped up by members of the audience.
On June 8, 2011, Zippy's voice artist, Roy Skelton, died and thus led to retiring the character.
Read more about this topic: Zippy (Rainbow)
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