Roland Rat

Roland Rat (birthday 12 March) is a British television puppet character. He was created, operated and voiced by David Claridge, who had previously been behind the Mooncat puppet in the Children's ITV television programme Get Up and Go! He worked for Jim Henson, then the second series of The Young Ones. Claridge would later operate and voice "Brian the Dinosaur" for BBC's Parallel 9, create and direct Happy Monsters, a pre school series for Channel 5 and shoot a CGI series Mozart's Dog for Paramount Comedy.

Character summary
Roland lived beneath King's Cross railway station in The Ratcave. He had an infant brother called Little Reggie and had a girlfriend: Glenis the Guinea Pig. His colleagues included dour Welsh technical whizz Errol the Hamster and over-enthusiastic self-appointed "number one ratfan" Kevin the Gerbil, who supposedly came from Leeds and loved pink buckets. Claridge actually voiced all three main characters: Roland Rat, Errol the Hamster and Kevin The Gerbil and they often appeared on screen together. Roland Rat's car 'the Ratmobile' is a bright pink 1953 Ford Anglia.

Roland was notable for his brash and confident personality, which writer Colin Bostock-Smith (who later took over the scripts) states was established by Claridge and writer Richard Curtis.

TVAM
Roland Rat was introduced in 1983 to ailing breakfast television network TV-am by Anne Wood and was generally regarded as its saviour, being described as "the only rat to join a sinking ship". After a couple of months on TV-am, Roland took the audience from 100,000 to 1.8 million. Initially, Roland was featured as the host of The Shedvision Show, allegedly broadcast from a wooden shack on the roof of TV-am's studios. On the strength of this, Roland was soon given a regular slot every morning introducing cartoons for younger viewers.

Arguably Roland Rat's golden age was the period from summer 1983 until summer 1985. During this period, Roland and friends would feature in a half hour episode transmitted on school holiday weekdays on TV-am from 0900-0930h. The school summer holidays of 1983 and 1984 saw Rat on the Road in which Roland and Kevin would spend each week in a different town of the United Kingdom. One notable highlight during this period was the visit of the late Austrian racing driver Roland Ratzenberger who appeared on the show in a motor race against the Ratmobile ending with Ratzenberger's car being sabotaged by his near-namesake.

The character of Errol the Hamster was gradually drafted in during the first year as a VT technician responsible for running the cartoons inserted into the show. Errol eventually joined Roland and Keving on location at Christmas of 1983 for Roland's Winter Wonderland which saw Roland, Kevin and Errol enjoying a skiing holiday together in Switzerland. The following year at Easter, Roland Rat hosted the show Roland Goes East set Kowloon, Hong Kong, and covering the ill fated film shoot of Roland's attempted movie debut, a martial arts film entitled Enter the Rodent.

The 1984 Christmas saw Roland's Countdown to Christmas. TV-AM sold Roland Rat advent calendars, with Roland opening each door with the viewers at 7.20am every day, The final door had Roland and his chums in the snow. The Easter 1985 holidays saw Operation FOGI (Free Our Glenis Immediately) which revolved around the gang's attempts - eventually successful - to liberate Glenis The Guinea Pig from her life in the pets department of Harrods.

Roland Rat last live appeaser on TVAM was on, Friday, Aug 30, 1985, when the last Summer holiday slot was broadcast. Roland made one more appearise albeit recorded highlights Sunday 13 October.

BBC
On 3 October 1985 he transferred to the BBC, for a three year contract suggested for a six Figure sum. Roland said "I saved TVam and now I'am here to save the BBC"

Roland had a number of shows through the Mid - late 1980s, most notably Roland Rat the Series, a chat show set in Roland's sewer home, now converted into a high-tech media centre the Ratcave. In a similar manner to The Muppet Show and its sequels, the show would intersperse the chat show segments with a storyline involving some sort of situation "behind the scenes". These series also featured Roland's parents, Iris and Freddie, his pet flea Colin, and his agent D'Arcy De Farcy. His girlfriend Glennis was replaced at this time with a flashier character called Roxanne Rat.

He also appeared in two spoof drama series, Tales of the Rodent Sherlock Holmes, in which he played Holmes with Kevin as Dr Watson, and Ratman, a Batman spoof with Kevin as his sidekick, "Pink Bucket Man". During Christmas 1985, British Telecom operated a free "ratphone" number on 0800 800 800.

Channel Five
In the late 1990s he reemerged on Channel 5, in LA Rat, which featured Roland and his friends touring Los Angeles. Roland made another brief return in early 2003 as a guest presenter of CiTV.

Other Appearance
Roland appeared on Big Brother UK 2004 in a task that involved the housemates playing a version of 20 Questions in order to guess the identity of various celebrities. While the celebrities could only answer questions with 'Yes' or 'No', housemate Stuart did not recognize Roland even after his identity was revealed.

In December 2007 Roland Rat appeared on a puppet special of the Weakest Link hosted by Anne Robinson which was originally broadcast on Friday 28 December 2007 at 18:00GMT on BBC One. Roland reached the final round with Soo from The Sooty Show which went to sudden death after initially drawing with four points each. Roland ultimately lost out to Soo's superior wisdom in the tense final standoff. He also made enemies out of fellow puppets Nobby the Sheep and Zippy.

Roland appeared in the fourth episode of the second series of Ashes to Ashes. This appearance was anachronistic, as the show is set in 1982 whereas Roland didn't debut until the following year.

In 2008, Roland released a Christmas single, "Ding Dong Ding Dong (Christmas Down The Drain)" featuring Kevin, Errol and Reggie, available for download.

On the 11th of February 2010, whilst making an appearance on BBC's 'The One Show' to answer a question about how children's programmes have changed over the years, Roland Rat spent so much time joking about the presenters (Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley) that Adrian ended the interview before he answered the question.

He has also offered to save struggling ITV breakfast show Daybreak by stepping in and repeating the astonishing turnaround he achieved in the 1980s for TV-am.

Music
Between 1983 and 1985, Roland had three UK chart hit singles including "Rat Rapping" and an album The Cassette Of The Album. A cassette version of the recording, entitled The Album was released concurrently. The cassette recording claimed to be the LP recording, and vice versa; spoken word sketches at the starts and ends of the sides on both releases revealed this to have been the result of a mix-up which could not be rectified for financial reasons. Each of the main characters contributed a song: Kevin the Gerbil's were My Roland and Pink Bucket Reggae, Reggie's song was It's great here, innit, and Errol the Hamster contributed Leeks Are Wonderful, Leeks Are Nice. A follow-up LP, Living Legend was produced by Stock Aitken Waterman. Kevin the Gerbil also had a top 50 single, Summer Holiday used as the theme to the second series of Rat on the Road.

TV-am serials (selected)

 * The Shedvision Show (1983)
 * Rat on the Road (1983) introduced Errol the Hamster in the final edition although Roland had ordered him by walkie-talkie to "Run VT" whenever it was time for the cartoon to air.
 * Roland's Winter Wonderland (1983) - filmed in Switzerland
 * Roland Goes East (1984) - filmed in Hong Kong. Introduced Little Reggie
 * Rat on the Road II (1984) - featured Kevin's cover of Summer Holiday and Roland's of Love Me Tender.
 * Operation FOGI (1984) - introduced Glenis the Guinea Pig who was rescued from the pet department in Harrod as a result of Operation FOGI (Free Our Glenis Immediately)
 * Roland's Countdown to Christmas (1984) - featured Roland and friends singing a rewritten version of The Twelve Days of Christmas featuring such paraphernalia associated with the show as Kevin's pink bucket, Errol's favourite leek pie and a Roland Rat Superstar cap.
 * Roland's Rat Race (1985) - featured the first appearance of the late James Saxon as Roland's incompetent PA D'Arcy De Farcey.
 * OWRRAS (1985) - This stood for Official Worldwide Roland Rat Appreciation Society. Broadcast in the summer of 1985, a studio based programme like The Shedvision Show and the half-term series Roland Live. The last TV-am Roland Rat serial.

The video game
In 1985 Ocean Software produced a game called Roland's Rat Race for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64. The player had to guide Roland through the sewers of London and collect nine pieces of a door which, when complete, would allow him to rescue his companions in time for an appearance on TV-am. Roland had to avoid enemies in the form of animated wellington boots which could be temporarily incapacitated with a squirt of glue, which could also be used to stop tube trains in order to ride on them.

Merchandise
The Roland Rat soft toy was very popular with children in the 1980s. He also appeared on mugs, and a range of children's glasses made by Dolland and Aitchison, amongst other things.

In November 2010, Asda's George Clothing "teamed-up" with Roland to launch a new range of rat-themed clothing, including a pair of "superstar lounge pants".

UK releases

 * Thorn EMI (1984–1988)
 * BBC Video (1988)
 * Contender Entertainment Group (2003)
 * Digital Classics DVD (2010)