Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 28, 1994                   TAG: 9406300049
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

THE BLOB

If you missed the story, on a back page of the newspaper last week, it seems the British Broadcasting Corp. is hoping to send over this Blobby thing as part of a TV deal - and make lots and lots of money. We apologize for referring to Mr. Blobby as a "thing," but it (he?) is described as "a fat, clumsy, pink creature resembling a giant polka-dotted jellyfish." We can think of no more precise way to classify it than as a "thing."

In an accompanying photograph, Mr. Blobby looks more like a giant bowling pin, or a pudgy British civil servant, towering over the heads of a clamoring group of smiling children. We have to assume, in the interest of proper journalistic ethics, that the kids weren't paid to show enthusiasm over meeting a blob of pink rubber.

The worrisome thing is, Mr. Blobby and these kids are in New York City. That's very close to America.

So we expect sometime soon there will be a Mr. Blobby invasion. It's part of the price we pay for youthful rebelliousness in this country, these constant British "invasions." We doubt that country will ever fully forgive us for throwing off the crown.

Thus, up pops Mr. Blobby, who, if the right TV "showcase" is found, is positioned to become the anti-Barney of the preschool set. Or at least of the parents. Some adults are reported to prefer the British blob to the purple dinosaur.

We have not seen Mr. Blobby performing live. What could be worse than hearing "I love you, you love me," sung by an adenoidal purple puppet to the tune of "This Old Man," for what seems like the millionth time?

Well, Mr. Blobby sings, too. He had the best-selling single in all of Britain in 1993, in fact. And he has only a one-word vocabulary. Blobby.

To which the response can only be: Mercy.