The Fudpuckers

## Bio

The **Fudpuckers** are a American married couple living in New York City in the fictional TV series "Yield To the Dawn" named Barney and Miriam Fudpucker. Unhappily married and always hurling insults at each other, they always trying to get the most from outside of the marriage, usually by extra-marital relationships. They have a forty-two year old daughter named Helen who cried herself to sleep because she thought she was ugly. However, she later gets married and moves out. They also have two sons. One is named Sonny, who backs the car out of the garage after its been been backed in and Lovelace (who was 17 in 1973), who has sideburns, wears earrings, sings work songs and starts fights with the neighborhood locals in the nearby delicatessen. Barney confesses he fought in World War Two and prefers guns as a deterrent against crime. He once had a brother who took his life after he couldn't get any drink or sex. He and Miriam had been married several years by 1973, confessing he almost came close to killing her in 1963. What irks him is he would have been out by then.

On April 25, 1979, several plot points from previous episodes are revealed:

* Bessie (Helen Horton) learns her husband Henry (Benny Hill) was once unfaithful
* A doctor (Benny Hill) tells an old-timer (Jackie Wright) he'll live a long time in front of his wife (Helen Horton) before complaining how hard it will be to get his coffin down the stairs
* Ted Tingley returns dating a new girl (Jenny Lee Wright)
* An old man (Benny Hill) telling his old friend (Henry McGee) that his wife didn't smoke, drink or allow off-color stories until his new girlfriend (Sue Upton) arrives
* A wife (Helen Horton) complaining to her husband (Benny Hill) that their maid (Abigail Higgins) has left them to work as a secretary
* As Henry passes away, he asks Bessie not to let her new husband wear his clothes; she reveals they wouldn't fit Jack anyway

In episode Lean On My Crutch, Miriam reveals that Harry and Blanche (Roger Finch and Emma Bryant) are coming for a visit, but Barney is barely interested. Miriam however is distraught about her daughter moving out despite the fact that she's forty-two years old. She's ebullient that her daughter can type sixty words a minute, but Harry reveals it was all the same word. He also reveals she took his pick-up truck, but Miriam tells him he'll get it back when she is finished with it. When Harry and Blanche arrive, they reveal that a neighbor named Harmon has died, but Barney is more interested in getting his lawn mower back from him. Miriam tells him he'll get it back when Harmon (who's dead) is finished with it. Harry then asks to borrow his new powder drill. but when he balks, Miriam just cuts him off with the same "when he's finished with it." Eventually, someone knocks at the door, and no one is around to answer it. When Barney goes to answer it, Miriam is stuned that he moved. The visitor is an incredibly beautiful woman (Abigail Higgins) asking for sugar; she produces a bra (Size 38 D) to put it in. When she asks Barney for help, everyone is taken aback by what the new neighbor wants, but Barney just reminds Miriam "she'll get him back when she is finished with him."

In episode God Bless My Father (Whoever He Was), several of the actors are revealed Helen Hornet (Helen Horton) plays Elsie Fudpucker, Orson Buggy (Benny Hill) plays Joe, Mary Tyler Bathroom plays Jody (Louise English), Olivia Newton-Thudd is Kit (Sue Upton), Ivor Littlehampton (Benny Hill) is Gramps and Tiddles the Wonder-Cat as Old One-Eye.

In the episode, Miriam and Barney (called Harry this time) are entertaining a new tenant to the building named Arbutnot (Henry McGee), who openly flirts with Miriam. They have a maid named Cindy (Jenny Lee-Wright) that Barney flirts with, but Cindy barely notices. She already has an older boyfriend who is twenty-six, but she wishes Barney was younger to date her mother. Unbeknownst to anyone, Miriam and Arbogast have been having an affair. He wants to give her a fur coat, devising a plan for Barney to "find it" in a bus station locker so he never knows where it came from. The next day, as Miriam asks what he found in the locker, he claims it was just an old broken umbrella he threw away. Arbogast and Miriam are now alarmed as to what happened to the coat, but then Cindy walks out wearing it, revealing that Barney knew about the affair the whole time.

In a later April 16, 1986 episode, the couple are bickering and yelling at each other again as their new neighbor Henry (Henry McGee) comes by to introduce himself. Miriam is immediately smitten by him, and he confides in Barney he thinks she's attractive as well, but Barney thinks he's nuts. In confidence, Henry informs Barney that he and his wife have an alternate lifestyle which Barney doesn't find hard to believe. Henry proposes they swap wives for a night, but Barney wants no part of it until he meets Lorraine, the sexy young lass (Lorraine Doyle) from next door. He is so befuddled by her looks that he accidentally dumps tea on her twice, and she has to walk around in her lingerie as Miriam dries her clothes. Barney is now really interested in swapping until he learns Lorraine is Henry's daughter. When Henry's wife really shows up, she (Kathy Staff) turns out to not be the great beauty he expected. However, she does make her own wine and beer and loves cooking and bowling. Barney turns out to be a big fan of her pastries, and they bond as friends.

## Trivia

* Many of the details about their progeny comes from the "American Generation Gap" monologue Benny performs as Barney Fudpucker on March 29, 1973.
* As noted by a fan, the March 5, 1980 sketch has Benny and Helen Horton's characters were as Harry and Blanche Dobbs, but the sketch is included here as staying in the theme of the other two.
* In every sketch, the Fudpuckers have a different apartment suggesting they move often.
* The "clothes not fit" routine is recycled from Look #7.
* Several of the quickies in the 1980 sketch were recycled from the opening of "Hold Back The Wind" sketch from Benny Hill: Down Under.
* The 1986 sketch was a remake of an earlier January 27, 1971 black and white sketch, "Henry and Alice and Bob and Mary," with Patricia Hayes as Benny's wife and Jenny Lee-Wright as the young girl. Nicholas Parsons had the Henry McGee role as the husband proposed the wife-swapping, and Rita Webb had the role now played by Kathy Staff.
* Along with Fred Scuttle, Chow Mein and Fanny and Johnny Craddock, the Fudpuckers possibly rank as among the top remembered characters in the series.

## Episode(s)

* Dalton Abbott Railway Choir
* The Police Raid in Waterloo Station
* Butch Cafferty and the Fundance Kid
* Cagney and Lacey

## Gallery

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