Last night I watched When Louis Met … Keith Harris And Orville In Panto. I hadn’t seen this since it first aired, and it had always stayed with me. Harris was a clearly talented performer, haunted by his own success, and ambivalent about the green duck that bought him that success (even though he is the green duck, but anyway). Cuddles always struck me as his vent for everything, and there’s something deeply tragic about that catchphrase “I ‘ate that duck!”.
Here’s Harris with Cuddles on Thames Television’s London Night Out, broadcast in July of 1978.