Beeb tinfoilhatters eat-yer-heart-out! "Petra the Blue Peter dog was a fake "

[emad]

Vindicated!

Blue Peter's first ever pet was a fake, the veteran former editor of the programme has disclosed in a new book.

Petra the dog was an emergency stand-in drafted on to the show because the original animal died two days after its first, and only, appearance.

The replacement dog then spent the next 15 years appearing on Blue Peter, becoming known to millions of children, and no-one ever spotted the difference.

The show's former editor Biddy Baxter, who oversaw the programme from 1962 to 1988, discloses the secrets of Blue Peter's first pet in a new book.

She recalls how on the last episode before Christmas 1962 the head of children's television Owen Reed appeared on the screen with a large cardboard box covered with Christmas paper and ribbons.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2661567/Petra-the-Blue-Peter-dog-was-a-fake.html


WHAT A PITY no one rewrote that last para with the bitch's head mysteriously appearing in the bed of Beeb Light Entertainment Chief's bed, a la The Godfather equine scene...

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Torygraph - last with the news

Just listed as a known fact on the BBC site, in 2005:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050430110055/http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/bluepeter/pets/petra.shtml

Wikipedia claims this was revealed in the 1990s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peter_pets#Petra