The Little Blue Man (Studham Common; January 1967)

[Paul_Exeter]

As a child of the 1960s in Britain, I can say with certainty that we were frequently, and collectively, influenced hugely by television. Even those who weren't viewers themselves (eg their families not being able to affort to buy or rent a TV) were aware of, and often influenced by, group chat about images / programmes / themes being discussed in front of them. This was also magnified hugely by media cross-overs, with TV content being covered in newspapers / magazines / comics (cf comic-books) and the seminal Commonwealth staple of "the annuals" (perennial hard-back collections of TV themed and comic-stripped stories).

School was almost always verbal and numerical: fiction / fun and imagination was largely visual. And in 1960s Britain, TV fed that appetite hugely. Here are a few 1967 British TV schedules, chosen to fairly-represent content these children would have seen in the days up to the Studham Common sighting:

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Take 'The Man From Uncle'.....here are some black-and-white screenshots taken from the above specific episode that some (or all) of these children almost-certainly would've seen in the days leading up to the reported sighting.....look at these in the context of the blue/grey fuzzy pictures that old, small television sets produced in the 1960s, and consider that these children (if they did see this programme, or something similar) might never have seen imagery like it before, ever, in their lives before.

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Perhaps it's an overly-simplistic / reductionist thesis: but could the specific content they'd seen on TV, perhaps very-shortly before the shared/reported experience occurred for them, have influenced them to have believed they had seen what they said they had?

If this broad (and boring) explanation is worthy of at least some consideration, I've got an alternative (and perhaps even better) TV iconic suspect than "The Men From UNCLE" - but we'll see what the reaction of the forum is to my above musings first.

Some valid points.

I've found the 2016 FT article BS3 flagged up in which Alex Butler, one of the original witnesses, came forward after so many years. He mentions that visibility was poor that afternoon and to his credit even admits they may have mistaken a fellow pupil in the school's blue uniform for something unearthly. At this moment in time I feel they may witnessed a strange lightning-related blue plasma phenomena that their young minds then interpreted as something they had read about or seen on tv, so I would welcome more of your thoughts.

 

[Ermintruder]

If (and it is only an 'if', irrespective of my own overlapping peer experience-of-context from that same far-off era) these children were to have been influenced in some supranaturally-deep way by content they'd seen on TV, I said earlier that I've got another (perhaps more-influential) potential contemporary candidate or archetype that may have deeply (and disproportionately) entered their collective imaginations.

This TV cartoon character made a massive impact upon me in the late 1960s, and I vaguely remember that they were quite a'universal' playground and playtime iconic reference (certainly in my part of the UK, which for simplicity I'll summarise as Scotland, but I'd confidently-expect our experiences to have been paralled elsewhere in the world where this character was syndicated).

A reminder to 'forum youngsters' who were born closer to either side of the Millennium: the later 1960s in the UK (outside central London) were largely dreary/dark/dismal and terms of stimulation for children. Books/magazines of all varieties made a big difference to this (and of course individual experiences will have varied, please humour my communicative hyperbole for now), but television programmes were MASSIVELY stimulating and influential for UK kids (especially with just 2-and-a-half channels, 'Interval' gaps, and late schedule starts/early finishes).

This reframed preamble is to act as an introduction (or potential reintroduction) to what we at school in Scotland called something like "The Wee Blue Mannie" or "The TV Ghost Mannie".

This curious little retro-futuristic time-travelling TV alien (who was actually green , though we didn't know that on black-and-white TV) was The Great Gazoo and he may look more-familiar to some forum members if I say that he was primarily a bizarre interloper into the much-more famous cartoon show "The Flintstones".

He was the very-first cartoon character I ever experienced who was truly a cross-genre element in Children's television programming in the UK of the 1960s. We were all entirely-familiar with the faux Americana domesticity of the Flintstone & Rubble households, and even as children managed to quickly-learn many of the transatlantic tropes that they unwittingly imprinted us with.

But the "Wee Blue Mannie" (as we called him in my part of the world) was WEIRD. He floated in-and-out of the warm/predictable world of The Flinstones, appearing/disappearing with his arms folded, like a buzzing/flickering/auroral high-tech genie. Unmissably-strange, and deliberately the re-focus of attention in every scene or setting.

He sometimes also appeared on other cartoon shows (albeit less-often) such as 'The Jetsons', but his other-worldly / plummy / sepulcheral voice always was very unsettling, and totally out of place. I've a recollection of seeing his aquamarine/green image printed on breakfast cereal boxes and upon collectable items in garages/filling stations. I remember the Great Gazoo also being used as a cross-genre character into a number of other children's comic-strips, and I think he possibly even was used as a gatecrash guest element within validatory real-life programmes like Blue Peter / Basil Brush.

As children, we knew he wasn't real, but there was such an extra-dimensional omnipresent eerieness and oddness about him, which I'm trying hard to objectively-convey, and contextualise into a grey world just two decades out of WW2. To play-about, and say 'oh look, the Wee Blue Manny's behind you!!!' was a common throwaway taunt or twist at your peers. Remember, this was also an era when British children were being utterly televisually-traumatised by 'Dr Who' (especially by Daleks and Cybermen), and the whole Mysterons trope within Captain Scarlet.

All of the above, regarding 'The Wee Blue Manny' (aka The Great Gazoo) is sheer extended conjecture on my part. But I'm blessed / cursed with a level of ability to sometimes remember back to previous experiences in my life with a reasonable degree of objectivity and accuracy. I've no idea whether these children saw, or were affected by, a single one of the experiences that had influences upon me or my peers- but I'm trying to 'channel the relevent potential context' as an emigrant from that far-away land of Britain c1967.

 

[Paul_Exeter]

If (and it is only an 'if', irrespective of my own overlapping peer experience-of-context from that same far-off era) these children were to have been influenced in some supranaturally-deep way by content they'd seen on TV, I said earlier that I've got another (perhaps more-influential) potential contemporary candidate or archetype that may have deeply (and disproportionately) entered their collective imaginations.

This TV cartoon character made a massive impact upon me in the late 1960s, and I vaguely remember that they were quite a'universal' playground and playtime iconic reference (certainly in my part of the UK, which for simplicity I'll summarise as Scotland, but I'd confidently-expect our experiences to have been paralled elsewhere in the world where this character was syndicated).

A reminder to 'forum youngsters' who were born closer to either side of the Millennium: the later 1960s in the UK (outside central London) were largely dreary/dark/dismal and terms of stimulation for children. Books/magazines of all varieties made a big difference to this (and of course individual experiences will have varied, please humour my communicative hyperbole for now), but television programmes were MASSIVELY stimulating and influential for UK kids (especially with just 2-and-a-half channels, 'Interval' gaps, and late schedule starts/early finishes).

This reframed preamble is to act as an introduction (or potential reintroduction) to what we at school in Scotland called something like "The Wee Blue Mannie" or "The TV Ghost Mannie".
View attachment 53085

This curious little retro-futuristic time-travelling TV alien (who was actually green , though we didn't know that on black-and-white TV) was The Great Gazoo and he may look more-familiar to some forum members if I say that he was primarily a bizarre interloper into the much-more famous cartoon show "The Flintstones".

He was the very-first cartoon character I ever experienced who was truly a cross-genre element in Children's television programming in the UK of the 1960s. We were all entirely-familiar with the faux Americana domesticity of the Flintstone & Rubble households, and even as children managed to quickly-learn many of the transatlantic tropes that they unwittingly imprinted us with.

But the "Wee Blue Mannie" (as we called him in my part of the world) was WEIRD. He floated in-and-out of the warm/predictable world of The Flinstones, appearing/disappearing with his arms folded, like a buzzing/flickering/auroral high-tech genie. Unmissably-strange, and deliberately the re-focus of attention in every scene or setting.

He sometimes also appeared on other cartoon shows (albeit less-often) such as 'The Jetsons', but his other-worldly / plummy / sepulcheral voice always was very unsettling, and totally out of place. I've a recollection of seeing his aquamarine/green image printed on breakfast cereal boxes and upon collectable items in garages/filling stations. I remember the Great Gazoo also being used as a cross-genre character into a number of other children's comic-strips, and I think he possibly even was used as a gatecrash guest element within validatory real-life programmes like Blue Peter / Basil Brush.

As children, we knew he wasn't real, but there was such an extra-dimensional omnipresent eerieness and oddness about him, which I'm trying hard to objectively-convey, and contextualise into a grey world just two decades out of WW2. To play-about, and say 'oh look, the Wee Blue Manny's behind you!!!' was a common throwaway taunt or twist at your peers. Remember, this was also an era when British children were being utterly televisually-traumatised by 'Dr Who' (especially by Daleks and Cybermen), and the whole Mysterons trope within Captain Scarlet.

All of the above, regarding 'The Wee Blue Manny' (aka The Great Gazoo) is sheer extended conjecture on my part. But I'm blessed / cursed with a level of ability to sometimes remember back to previous experiences in my life with a reasonable degree of objectivity and accuracy. I've no idea whether these children saw, or were affected by, a single one of the experiences that had influences upon me or my peers- but I'm trying to 'channel the relevent potential context' as an emigrant from that far-away land of Britain c1967.

Great find: able to appear and disappear at will, has the round eyes, one-piece suit, odd helmet and the belt. No flowing beard but he does have a flowing cape and those collars. Here is a video about his creation:

 

[BS3]

If (and it is only an 'if', irrespective of my own overlapping peer experience-of-context from that same far-off era) these children were to have been influenced in some supranaturally-deep way by content they'd seen on TV, I said earlier that I've got another (perhaps more-influential) potential contemporary candidate or archetype that may have deeply (and disproportionately) entered their collective imaginations.

This TV cartoon character made a massive impact upon me in the late 1960s, and I vaguely remember that they were quite a'universal' playground and playtime iconic reference (certainly in my part of the UK, which for simplicity I'll summarise as Scotland, but I'd confidently-expect our experiences to have been paralled elsewhere in the world where this character was syndicated).

A reminder to 'forum youngsters' who were born closer to either side of the Millennium: the later 1960s in the UK (outside central London) were largely dreary/dark/dismal and terms of stimulation for children. Books/magazines of all varieties made a big difference to this (and of course individual experiences will have varied, please humour my communicative hyperbole for now), but television programmes were MASSIVELY stimulating and influential for UK kids (especially with just 2-and-a-half channels, 'Interval' gaps, and late schedule starts/early finishes).

This reframed preamble is to act as an introduction (or potential reintroduction) to what we at school in Scotland called something like "The Wee Blue Mannie" or "The TV Ghost Mannie".
View attachment 53085

This curious little retro-futuristic time-travelling TV alien (who was actually green , though we didn't know that on black-and-white TV) was The Great Gazoo and he may look more-familiar to some forum members if I say that he was primarily a bizarre interloper into the much-more famous cartoon show "The Flintstones".

He was the very-first cartoon character I ever experienced who was truly a cross-genre element in Children's television programming in the UK of the 1960s. We were all entirely-familiar with the faux Americana domesticity of the Flintstone & Rubble households, and even as children managed to quickly-learn many of the transatlantic tropes that they unwittingly imprinted us with.

But the "Wee Blue Mannie" (as we called him in my part of the world) was WEIRD. He floated in-and-out of the warm/predictable world of The Flinstones, appearing/disappearing with his arms folded, like a buzzing/flickering/auroral high-tech genie. Unmissably-strange, and deliberately the re-focus of attention in every scene or setting.

He sometimes also appeared on other cartoon shows (albeit less-often) such as 'The Jetsons', but his other-worldly / plummy / sepulcheral voice always was very unsettling, and totally out of place. I've a recollection of seeing his aquamarine/green image printed on breakfast cereal boxes and upon collectable items in garages/filling stations. I remember the Great Gazoo also being used as a cross-genre character into a number of other children's comic-strips, and I think he possibly even was used as a gatecrash guest element within validatory real-life programmes like Blue Peter / Basil Brush.

As children, we knew he wasn't real, but there was such an extra-dimensional omnipresent eerieness and oddness about him, which I'm trying hard to objectively-convey, and contextualise into a grey world just two decades out of WW2. To play-about, and say 'oh look, the Wee Blue Manny's behind you!!!' was a common throwaway taunt or twist at your peers. Remember, this was also an era when British children were being utterly televisually-traumatised by 'Dr Who' (especially by Daleks and Cybermen), and the whole Mysterons trope within Captain Scarlet.

All of the above, regarding 'The Wee Blue Manny' (aka The Great Gazoo) is sheer extended conjecture on my part. But I'm blessed / cursed with a level of ability to sometimes remember back to previous experiences in my life with a reasonable degree of objectivity and accuracy. I've no idea whether these children saw, or were affected by, a single one of the experiences that had influences upon me or my peers- but I'm trying to 'channel the relevent potential context' as an emigrant from that far-away land of Britain c1967.

Spot on - I was thinking there was a cartoon character of some sort that I was vaguely reminded of (my frame of reference is a few years later), and I'm pretty sure this was it.