Mary Tourtel was created in 1920, at a time when the "Express" was in competition with "The Daily Mail" and its then popular comic strip "Teddy Tail", as well as the strip "Pip, Squeak and Wilfred" in "The Daily Mirror". The then news editor of the "Express", Herbert Tourtel, was approached with the task of producing a new comic strip to rival those of the "Mail" and "Mirror" and immediately thought of his wife Mary, already an established author and artist. Rupert Bear was the result and was first published as a nameless character in a strip titled "Little Lost Bear" on
The Adventures of Rupert Bear new friends, including a sprite called Willy Wisp. One of the most-remembered elements of the series was the catchy theme song, which was written by Len Beadle and Ron Roker, sung by Jackie Lee, which reached No. 14 in the United Kingdom charts in 1971. The song includes the erroneous lyric "Rupert "the" Bear", even though Rupert has never had the definite article in his name. The narrator of the stories was Judy Bennett. Of the 156 episodes made, for many years only 75 were known to exist in their original colour film format, with a further 16 duplicated on