Paddington Bear
He first appeared on 13 October 1958 and was subsequently featured in several books, most recently in 2008, written by Michael Bond and first illustrated by Peggy Fortnum. The polite immigrant bear from Darkest Peru, with his old hat, battered suitcase, duffle coat and love of marmalade sandwiches has become a classic character from English children's literature. Paddington books have been translated into thirty languages across seventy titles and sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.
Over 265 licences, making thousands of different products across the United Kingdom, Europe, United States, Southeast Asia, Japan, Australia and South Africa all benefit from the universal recognition of Paddington Bear.
Paddington is an anthropomorphised bear. He is always polite (always addressing people as "Mr.", "Mrs." and "Miss" and very rarely by first names) and well-meaning (though he inflicts hard stares on those who incur his disapproval).
He likes marmalade sandwiches and cocoa, and has an endless capacity for getting into trouble. However, he is known to "try so hard to get things right".
He is an adoptive member of the (human) Brown family, and thus gives his full name as Paddington Brown.
History
Origin
Bond based Paddington Bear on a lone teddy bear he noticed on a shelf in a London store near Paddington Station on Christmas Eve 1956, which he bought as a present for his wife. The bear inspired Bond to write a story, and in ten days, he had written the first book.
A Bear Called Paddington was first published on 13 October 1958, by William Collins & Sons (now Harper Collins).
The toy Paddington Bear
The first Paddington Bear was created in 1972 by Gabrielle Designs, a small business run by Shirley and Eddie Clarkson, with the prototype made as a Christmas present for their children Joanna and Jeremy Clarkson (English broadcaster and writer). Shirley Clarkson dressed Paddington in Wellington boots to help the bear stand upright.
(Paddington received wellingtons for Christmas in Paddington Marches On, 1964.) The earliest bears wore small children's boots manufactured by Dunlop until their production could not meet demand. Gabrielle Designs then produced their own boots with paw prints moulded into the soles.
Shirley Clarkson's book describes the evolution of the toy Paddington from Christmas gift to subject of litigation and ultimately commercial success.
Storyline
In the first story, Paddington is found at Paddington railway station in London by the Brown family, sitting on his suitcase (bearing the label "WANTED ON VOYAGE") with a note attached to his coat which reads, "Please look after this bear.
Thank you." Bond has said that his memories of newsreels showing trainloads of child evacuees leaving London during the war, with labels around their necks and their possessions in small suitcases, prompted him to do the same for Paddington.
He has arrived as a stowaway coming from "Darkest Peru", sent by his Aunt Lucy (one of his only known relatives, aside from an Uncle Pastuzo who gave Paddington his hat), who has gone to live in the Home for Retired Bears in Lima. He claims, "I came all the way in a lifeboat, and ate marmalade.
Bears like marmalade." He tells them that no one can understand his Peruvian name, so the Browns decide to call him Paddington after the railway station in which he was found. Bond originally wanted Paddington to have "travelled all the way from darkest Africa", but his agent advised him that there were no bears in darkest Africa, and thus it was amended to darkest Peru, home of the spectacled bear.
They take him home to 32 Windsor Gardens, off Harrow Road between Notting Hill and Maida Vale.
The stories follow Paddington's adventures and mishaps in England.
When he gets annoyed with someone, he often gives them one of his special "hard stares" (taught to him by Aunt Lucy), which causes the person to become flushed and embarrassed.
Characters
There is a recurring cast of characters, all of whom are in some way implicated by Paddington's misadventures. Gruber: Owner of an antique shop on the Portobello Road, with whom Paddington has his elevenses every day.
Curry: The Browns' mean and bad-tempered next-door neighbour, who addresses Paddington simply as "Bear!" He often invites himself to many of the Browns' special occasions (though just to sample the snacks).
Aunt Lucy: Paddington's aunt from South America.
Books
A Bear Called Paddington was first published in 1958 and was followed by ten more books. In order of publication, the titles are:
A Bear Called Paddington (1958)
Featured Stories:
Please Look After This Bear - The story of how the Browns first met Paddington at Paddington station, hence his name.
Curry, the Browns' bad-tempered next-door neighbour.
Other titles
More About Paddington (1959)
Paddington Helps Out (1960)
Paddington Abroad (1961)
Paddington at Large (1962)
Paddington Marches On (1964)
Paddington at Work (1966)
Paddington Goes to Town (1968)
Paddington Takes the Air (1970)
Paddington's Blue Peter Story Book (1973)
Paddington on Top (1974)
Paddington Takes the Test (1979)
Paddington on Screen (1980)
Paddington Rules the Waves (2008)
Paddington Here and Now (2008)
Special publications
Paddington Rules the Waves (2008) A £1 World Book Day Book
Paddington Here and Now (2008) Published as part of the series' 50th anniversary celebrations..
Blue Peter
Author Michael Bond was also a BBC TV cameraman who worked on the popular children's television programme Blue Peter. After this was revealed in 1965, a special Paddington story — in which he got mixed up in the programme itself — appeared annually in the Blue Peter Annuals for many years.
They were collected in the novel-length Paddington's Blue Peter Story Book in 1973.
Featured Stories:
"Paddington Goes Halves": Paddington enters a craft competition for Blue Peter.
Curry's guest room as his studio, on condition that he gives Mr. Curry expected.
Paddington is put in charge of looking after Joey, the Blue Peter parrot, whilst the team are away.
"Paddington Weighs in": Paddington sees an item on Blue Peter, and thinks that the team are in trouble.
This series had an extremely distinctive appearance: Paddington was a stop-motion puppet moving in a three dimensional space in front of two-dimensional backgrounds (which were frequently sparse black-and-white line drawings), while all other characters were 2D drawings — in one scene, a character hands Paddington a jar of marmalade that becomes 3D when Paddington touches it. Animator Ivor Wood also worked on The Magic Roundabout and Postman Pat.
In the United States, episodes aired on PBS, on the syndicated series Romper Room, on Nickelodeon as a segment on the program Pinwheel and on USA Network as a segment on the program Calliope in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as well as in between preschool programming on the Disney Channel throughout the 1990s. The series also aired on HBO in between features, usually when they were airing children's programmes.
This series was traditional two-dimensional animation and featured veteran voice actor Charlie Adler as Paddington and Tim Curry as Mr. The show was called The Adventures of Paddington Bear.
On the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire in the United States, contestant David Goodman had a question worth $1 Million saying "In the children's book series, where is Paddington Bear originally from? A: India, B: Peru, C: Canada, D: Iceland".
and producer David Heyman announced a live action film adaptation of Paddington Bear. Paddington was featured on the Royal Mail 1st class stamp in the Animal Tales series released on 10 January 2006, and had previously been featured on one of the 1st class Greetings Messages stamps, released on 1 February 1994.
In 2008, the Pobjoy Mint in London issued a series of Paddington Bear legal tender coins under authority of the government of the Isle of Man.
Coins were minted in copper-nickel, silver and gold.
Google
On 13 October 2008, Google celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first Paddington publication by placing an image of the travelling bear with a sign showing Peru and London incorporated into Google's logo.