Animal cracker Animal cracker An animal cracker is a particular type of small cracker/cookie, baked in the shape of an animal, usually an animal either at a zoo or circus, such as an African lion, tiger, bear or elephant. The most common variety is light-colored and slightly sweet, but darker chocolate-flavored and colorful frosted varieties are also sold. Although animal crackers are made with a layered dough like crackers, they tend to be sweet in flavor, but still technically a cracker and not a cookie. Other animal-shaped crackers and cookies are popular, such as Teddy Grahams, Goldfish, Hello Panda and Koala's March.
Sooty was bought by rival company Hit Entertainment, giving them the rights to Sooty. The property suffered from cutbacks under Hit Entertainment's ownership, with many of the puppeteers and Soo's voice actor Brenda Longman leaving. Sooty was cancelled in 2004 due to this, making 2005 the first year where no new Sooty series was shown. In October 2007, Hit Entertainment put the rights to Sooty up for sale and in June 2008 it was announced that Richard Cadell had bought the rights. Plans for three new TV shows were under way, plus a reworking of one of Matthew Corbett's stage shows.