The Sooty show laid bear - Children, puppets and make-believe

This article seeks to examine the complex nature of pretence as portrayed in a popular UK children's television puppet show. Central to the various theoretical concerns with make-believe philosophical, psychological and lucid - has been the phenomenological axis of the 'real-imaginary'. Because of the serial types of transformations undertaken by characters in the programme and the reliance placed on natural models of conversation, the problematic nature of this core boundary is highlighted. Despite its overt status as a fictional representation of animal behaviour, the very animality of the puppets is rendered opaque as their identities as children are linguistically accomplished. As a consequence we argue that the show as a piece of representational art is structured by moral and behavioural dictates typical of conventional adult-child interaction.