Sweep

"What's five minus three?"
"Can I use a calculator?"

— Matthew testing Sweep

Character Profile

Name	Sweep
Type of animal	Dog
Birthday	April 1st
Hobbies	Digging for bones, Singing

Sweep is a British puppet and TV character popular in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and other countries.

History with the series

Sweep is a grey, glove puppet dog with long black ears who joined The Sooty Show in 1957, as a friend to fellow puppet Sooty. His general dim witted behaviour and penchant for bones and sausages has made him an endearing, entertaining character that children still love to this day.

Probably his most unusual characteristic is his method of communication. It consists of a loud high pitched squeak that gains its inflection from normal speech and its rhythm from the syllables in each word. The rest of the cast could understand Sweep perfectly, and would indirectly translate for the viewer. The original puppeteer (Harry Corbett's brother, Leslie) achieved the sound of Sweep's voice using a saxophone reed.

It is known that, unusually for a glove puppet, Sweep wore wellingtons as several of the more slapstick routines involved his getting upended, leaving his wellies flailing helplessly in the air.