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21st May 2018
02:13pm BST
To Irish people of a certain generation, alien puppets Zig and Zag were basically like family. We'd see them as soon as we got home from school, they taught all we know about the big bad world and most of the time they had us in stitches while doing it.
The stars of The Den on RTÉ, the brothers from the planet Zog were the brainchildren of
Ciarán Morrison and Mick O'Hara who also brough the nightmarish Podge and Rodge into our lives. Now, all these years later, the lads, who can be found on Twitter under the username @DoubleZCreative, have gone out of their way to share a story about the original Podge puppet which wouldn't be out of place in an episode of A Scare At Bedtime.
1/ FLASHBACK! The true scary story about the ‘original’ Podge from #TheDen
— Double Z (@DoubleZCreative) May 17, 2018
Warning: Not for the faint hearted!
First a little history... pic.twitter.com/Cz9OUzNmtv
2/ Podge first appeared on The Den in 1990 as a ventriloquist dummy that Zag found. Zag used to perform the Podge & Zag show – a sickly sweet double act. But the true Podge came to life and talked to Zig when he was alone, trying to influence him to do naughty shenanigans... pic.twitter.com/dXWjdGFfh1
— Double Z (@DoubleZCreative) May 17, 2018
3/ Eventually Ray managed to catch Podge and get rid of him. Only to return occasionally and cause chaos (often implying he ate dogs!) on The Den. At that stage he had become a master of disguise; calling himself Roger Egdop, Postman Padraig etc. pic.twitter.com/QgF7o7LkKI
— Double Z (@DoubleZCreative) May 17, 2018
4/ Podge did a fine turn in The Den Christmas Special ‘Christmas Crisis’ (1992) in multiple guises attempting to ruin Christmas. Shortly after this the 'original Podge' puppet was retired and placed in storage. pic.twitter.com/AiyJGgXbzV
— Double Z (@DoubleZCreative) May 17, 2018
Christmas Crisis clip (1992) pic.twitter.com/JJqqiYDLFn
— Double Z (@DoubleZCreative) May 17, 2018
5/ In 1996 we created #PodgeAndRodge (of ‘A Scare At Bedtime’ and later The Podge and Rodge Show’ fame) for the Den Christmas special ‘Christmas Crisis 2’ – they were to be modelled on the ‘original Podge’. So we got him out of storage... pic.twitter.com/yRVfvJWXFi
— Double Z (@DoubleZCreative) May 17, 2018
6/ NOW THIS IS WHERE THE STORY GETS CREEPY: The ‘original Podge’ puppet had been stored in a crate for the intervening four years, but when we took him out of his box, we discovered a yellow note in his pocket… pic.twitter.com/O7h7qLQ5eA
— Double Z (@DoubleZCreative) May 17, 2018
7/ None of us had put it there and no-one could ever explain how this strange piece of paper, which turned out to be a Christmas cracker joke list got into his pocket. And stranger still are the particularly creepy jokes – check them out! pic.twitter.com/Y7eZEflvQI
— Double Z (@DoubleZCreative) May 17, 2018
'A man and his young son went on a camping trip without mother. After one night in the woods, the father asked his son how he was enjoying himself, "Fine, Dad'" said the boy "But next time let's bring mother and the tomato sauce."
— Double Z (@DoubleZCreative) May 17, 2018
What??! Are they planning on eating mother?!!
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