Toby Twirl Tourtel, an assistant editor of the "Daily Express". Tourtel devised Rupert Bear shortly after the end of World War I, in 1920, when the "Daily Express" was in competition with "The Daily Mail" and its then popular comic strip “Teddy Tail” (featuring a mouse called “Teddy Tail”), as well as with the comic strip “Pip, Squeak and Wilfred” (respectively, these are the names of a dog, penguin, and rabbit) in the "Daily Mirror". Each panel of Tourtel's comic strip story was accompanied by a narrative in rhymed verse. These are the very first ("Daily Express", 8 November 1920): The title
Rupert Bear series, with many of the stories being almost direct adaptations of his or others' panel stories from the "Daily Express". It was broadcast in syndication on YTV in Canada. In the United States the show first aired on Nickelodeon before moving to CBS in January 1999; repeats of the series came to Qubo's digital service in January 2007. The show was broadcast in the UK on CITV. In Australia, the show was broadcast on the ABC and on TV2 in New Zealand as part of the Jason Gunn show. The series has been re-aired in the UK on the satellite