Mythlands: Mythical Origins

10. 201 Teddy Bears (and Phoenix)

Domain City Studios - Present Day as mortals tell time.

'Good morning everyone, and welcome to another edition of ROSIE!'

Audience: 'Good morning Rosie!!!!'

Theme tune plays.

Rosie smiles and adopts her trademark pose of rolling up her sleeve and flexing her bicep.

The audience shouts 'WE CAN DO IT!'

Rosie grins at the camera, waves to the audience again and crosses to the couch, taking off her white dotted red head scarf.

'I hope everyone's wide awake and ready for a great show; we've got cooking tips from Ratautoille and The Swedish Chef, more great music from our house band The Commitments and a special guest solo by none other than The Blue Fairy ... and that's after we get to our very special guests. Talking of, give a big ROSIE welcome to some good friends of mine ... the adorable teddy bears of Picnic fame! Well seven of them ... come on out guys.'

Seven teddy bears emerge from the exit to backstage - they are of slightly differing heights ranging from two feet to four feet tall, each dressed uniquely and with different colour fur.

'Good morning teddies. Welcome to ROSIE!'

Rufus Goldbloom, a beige bear speaks. 'Thank you Rosie, it's a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having us on.' 

'It's wonderful that you were able to make it Rufus. Now I notice that everyone else apart from you and the big fella are wearing clothing. Can I ask why some of you teddies do so and some don't.'

'Sure Rosie. Well as you can see, we're pretty fluffy in our natural state. Hercules here is the fluffiest of all of us and to us, just being us is like having a natural fur coat. The weather in the Domain is usually mild to hot most of the year round so personally I don't like to bundle up and get overheated.'

Rosie turns to the four foot bear with the brown fur. 'You're Hercules and I guess I can see why they call you that. Are you the biggest of all the teddy bears?'

Hercules smiles and waves his paws at Rosie.

'Rufus?'

'Sorry Rosie, I should have said. Hercules is 90% deaf and while he can understand you via a combination of lip reading and what, to him, sounds like your voice at a distance, he never speaks. But he signs quite well.'

'Ah ok, so can you tell me what Hercules is saying?'

'I certainly can. He's saying first of all that he's a big fan of the show and he's thrilled to meet you Rosie. In fact he says he's been a fan since you used to do The Riveting Hour. He also answers yes, he is the biggest of us ... not just in height but for his physique. That's why he chose the name Hercules.'

Rosie glances down at her question sheet. 'Well I was going to move onto that in a bit, but since you've brought it up, can you tell me a bit about how you reinvented yourselves?'

Rufus smiles. 'Sure, but I don't want to monopolize the conversation. Maybe the Father can pick up on that point.

Rosie looks down at her sheet and the camera's point at a teddy bear who is virtually identical to Rufus except for his priest's clothes and glasses. 'Father Ronan O Hoolihan, welcome to the show.'

'Aye and it's a grand pleasure ta be here Rosie. Now, your man Rufus here was about saying as how we all arrived as teddy bears from the picnic.'

'This was back in 1946?'

'Aye, right at the beginning, sure. Well ye know your own self that many a character had not a shred of identity beyond his or her descriptions, so each developed their persona.'