The Enid Blyton Society

By the way, talking of Noddy, I was just looking at the Wikipedia page on him — Noddy (character) — and could see a number of inaccuracies, but this (in the list of characters) takes the cake for being completely unfair:

The Gollies were the villains in the original book series and were replaced by Sly and Gobbo for the TV series in the early 1980s.

There is only ONE Noddy book in which golliwogs appear as villains (Here Comes Noddy Again) — and, as at least one scholar I know of (David Rudd) has pointed out, that's exactly what makes the scene effective: because golliwogs are not normally villains in the Noddy books (or Enid's works in general), Noddy isn't at first troubled by having one ask him for a lift, and it comes as a real shock when he is mugged by a gang of them. In the expurgated editions, replacing the gollies with goblins only makes Noddy look stupid, because goblins are always villains in the Noddy books and Noddy should have known he was asking for trouble by taking one in his car!

this is very true - and also the Gollies are well dressed and look like gentlemen, so as you say, Noddy is oblivious to the danger. When I was a child this was one of my favourite Noddy books, and I loved the poem, which I still think of today when I'm walking in a wood! 'It isn't very good in the dark, dark wood!'

In the middle of the night, when there isn't any light?

Why don't you correct the Wikipedia entry, Courtney?

Because I don't have a Wikipedia account and don't really want one. I was hoping that someone else here might take it up...

I'll do it. I will just remove that reference, I think, as this appears down below anyway:

The original Noddy stories featured golliwogs – black-faced woollen dolls. These dolls were popular in the UK at the time the stories were written, but were later seen as racial stereotypes and retired.[1] They were replaced by goblins, including the nefarious Sly and Gobbo, in 1989. Some long-time fans have decried the changes as part of "political correctness".

Thanks, Fiona!

I agree the existing reference to golliwogs is good, but it doesn't go far enough — the golliwogs were "replaced with goblins" in the one instance where they were the bad guys, but elsewhere, when they were good or simply neutral characters, they were replaced with other toys. I'm not sure who or what the golliwog garage owner was turned into (he's the one who sold Noddy his car in the second book), but I remember Viv's video about the history of golliwogs pointing out one instance in the illustrations where a golly was replaced with a monkey. (And replacing a black-skinned character with a monkey is not, of course, at all racist... )

Well if you or anyone else can come up with a replacement for that (or any other parts they disagree with) I can make more edits.

Hmmm. Maybe we could just remove the reference to goblins entirely — something like this?

The original Noddy stories featured golliwogs – black-faced woollen dolls. These dolls were popular in the UK at the time the stories were written, but were later seen as racial stereotypes and retired.[1] They were replaced by a variety of other characters from 1989 onwards. Some long-time fans have decried the changes as part of "political correctness".

That way there are no implications that the gollies as portrayed by Enid were "nefarious" characters, as her goblins always are.

Ok, I've changed that as well. It's a right muddle of a page, though, as it swings back and forth between the books and the TV series without clear explanation.