Here Comes the Wagon... on DVD!
This Story: November 8, 2005
We have been informed – and thanks to Andrea for the information – that copies of the much-anticipated Wanderly Wagon DVD have already been spotted in branches of Golden Discs.
What is Wanderly Wagon, you might well ask? As the opening song proclaimed, it is “...the most unusual wagon you ever knew.” Pádraig O Méalóid once described it in these terms: “Think Dr Who with a fat man instead of The Doctor, a grandmother instead of the companion, a horsedrawn wagon instead of the TARDIS, and absolutely no budget whatsoever, and you’re still miles out.” (WW purists may, however, quibble with this, especially as the status of the Godmother character as an ancestor was never established as canon.)
For those of you from outside Ireland, or who were born in the last twenty years, or are not acquainted with the vintage years of Irish television, Wanderly Wagon was a children’s programme that ran between 1968 and 1982 on the Irish national broadcasting station, RTÉ. It chronicled the adventures of the inhabitants of the titular horse-drawn wagon, who journeyed through a fantastic, magical version of the Irish countryside battling baddies, frequently utilizing the medium of song to point out the error of their ways. I should also point out that it was a horse-drawn caravan that was capable of both atmospheric and interplanetary flight, so there was the occasional foray into space.
The regular human members of the crew were the matronly Godmother, the greedy but good-hearted O’Brien and the musical Rory, although Rory left in 1974, ostensibly to help the moon mice. (This writer actually remembers the episode.) Other members of the cast included Judge, the dog, and Mr. Crow, a crow who lived in a cuckoo clock, as well as the regular guest villain, Ssssneaky Ssssnake. These puppet members of the cast were the work of Eugene Lambert, who also played O’Brien. The wagon itself was on public display for many years parked outside the RTE headquarters in Dublin and has achieved such a position in the national consciousness that it has, on occasion, been exhibited in the National Museum of Decorative Arts & History.
Wanderly Wagon even had a spinoff, Fortycoats & Co, that ran in the eighties. More information on the show is available on the Wanderly Wagon page on the excellent Irish TV site.
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