Jigsaw (British TV series)

Jigsaw is a BBC show aimed at children between the ages of 4 and 7 that combined elements of puzzle solving and entertainment, which was broadcast from 16 July 1979 until 15 June 1984. It was awarded a BAFTA in 1981.

Written and directed by Clive Doig, the show was presented by mime artist Adrian Hedley, Janet Ellis and "Jigg" - a giant floating orange jigsaw piece, voiced by John Leeson later replaced by Tommy Boyd then Howard Stableford.

Ellis left in 1983 to become a Blue Peter presenter, at which point she was replaced by Dot, played by Julia Binsted - an anthropomorphism of the "cursor dot" (the dot made by the raster-scanning beam in the analogue CRT television sets of the time).

Featured supporting cast also included Paul Clayton, Biggum the giant (played by Leeson) and Wilf Lunn who appeared as a mad inventor. Other unusual characters included Pterry, a puppet Pterodactyl (operated by Joe Barton); Cid Sleuth (played by David Cleveland), a Sherlock Holmes-looking bumbling detective plagued by a mysterious burglar (David Wyatt); Hector The Hedgehog; and the O-Men (Sylvester McCoy and David Rappaport), a pair of hapless superheroes summoned by saying any six consecutive words containing a double-O (even the same word repeated six times counted once, albeit inadvertently - Dot said 'coo' four times imitating a pigeon, then Adrian mocked her attempt, saying it twice more to trigger the summon).