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SuperTed was created by Mike Young in 1978 for his son to help him overcome his fear of the dark. Later Mike decided to put the stories into book form and the character became a success in over 100 short stories.
In 1981, S4C enquired about making Superted into animations, but Mike decided to create Siriol Productions to produce the series himself. Siriol management wished to create SuperTed in a way which their own kids could be proud of, free from facile plots and hard line violence. This concept continued to be adopted to all series made by Siriol, which proves soft edge and quality animation can be more appealing to children than any amount of violence.
Story
SuperTed is a teddy bear found to be defective in the toy factory where he was made, and "threw him away like a piece of rubbish! Into an old dark storeroom." A Spotty man found him there and brought him to life with his "cosmic dust". He was then taken to Mother Nature and given magical powers that enabled him to fight evil. SuperTed's powers are activated by his "secret magic word", which (as the name suggests) remains a secret. SuperTed whispers it every time he or someone else is in peril and he transforms into a superhero with Superman-like red suit with rockets built in to the boots. These allow him to fly. In one episode, Bulk overhears the secret magic word and also whispers it, briefly acquiring identical powers to SuperTed. However, he subsequently forgets the word. The evil invariably takes the form of Texas Pete (an evil cowboy, the antagonist of the series) and his gang; Bulk (an overweight, bumbling fool) and Skeleton (an undead, outrageously camp, cowardly skeleton with pink slippers). Texas Pete's plots are generally aimed at advancing his own wealth, ruling the world and the power or the destruction of SuperTed, his nemesis.
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