TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

Ventriloquist Terry Hall and his sidekick Lenny the Lion were given their own tea-time pop show which would have three musical guests each week in amongst the corny gags and children's laughter. The show itself was a pop quiz based in a record shop.

Lenny first appeared in a Blackpool show in 1954 and proved very popular immediately. Hall had been a successful and well-respected figure in show business for many years and even appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show in America in 1958, but it was singer Anne Shelton who suggested that Hall change Lenny's voice to the higher, lispy voice that made him a star.

The Bert Hayes Octet provided musical accompaniment, while The Raindrops, featuring Jackie Lee, was the resident vocal group for the third and final series. However, the show is now best remembered for an early appearance by The Beatles in May 1963. Each week all the acts would group together for a musical finale.

Hall replaced Lenny with a new body each year, at the cost of £150, but famously, in 1964 Lenny's body got lost in the post. Thankfully, the day that the story hit the newspapers it turned up.

Two shows are known to exist in the BBC archive.

POPS AND LENNY

BBC

10th May 1962 - 6th June 1963