Sooty puppet's name. He would later be joined by other puppet glove characters, including Sweep (a dog who communicates by a saxophone reed type squeak), Soo (a shy and sweetly spoken panda), Kipper (a cat), Butch (another dog who occasionally plays the part of a villain), Ramsbottom (a snake), 'Enry the Robot, Cousin Scampi (another bear, who is Sooty's cousin), Miki (another cat - this time Brazilian) and Maggie Mouse. Like Sooty, Scampi appears to talk only in a very light whisper which can be heard only when someone puts their ear close to his mouth. Matthew Corbett, the son of
Sooty (gene) is associated with the sooty trait. The most extensive expression of sooty produces a dark, often-dappled cast oriented down from the topline. Many horses with the sooty trait have a darker mask on the bony parts of the face. It was once thought that the sooty trait was responsible for turning chestnut into liver chestnut, however it is not known to evenly darken the coat. The sooty trait is responsible for many dark bays and has a particularly pronounced effect on buckskins and palominos. Although this trait has been called the "sooty gene", similar coat-darkening conditions studied in mice suggest