Page 33 - Philly Girl

Philly Girl 17

Bunyips Really Exist

Most children growing up in Philadelphia in the 1950s and
1960s remember Sally Starr, Popeye Theatre, Mr. Rivets,
Gene London, and the Bertie the Bunyip show. What exactly
is a bunyip? In Philadelphia when I was a child, it signified
a puppet that had exciting adventures. We used to sing the
theme song. We all wanted to be on the show. We hoped to
get autographs from Bertie.
As an adult, on a trip to Western Australia, I went out
walking in the bush on the Indian Ocean side of the coun-
try. Along the trail, I spotted a kangaroo at close range,
which startled me, but it hopped away before I could make
its acquaintance. Just as my heart rate began to slow, I saw
something else that startled me: a sign that proclaimed,
“Bunyips may be seen along this trail. Let them go along
their merry way.”
The native Australians I met explained. A bunyip, they
told me, was a mythic and much-cherished entity of the
Aboriginal people in the area. I remember wondering at
the time if the writer of the Philadelphia puppet show was
Australian. Or had been to Western Australia in the 1950s.
I even speculated, hyperimaginatively (I admit), that the
writer may have shared a foxhole with an Aboriginal person
during World War II, heard about bunyips, and had the idea
of starting a puppet show starring one—Bertie! And that is
an Australian-sounding name, isn’t it?