Basil Brush very aggressive Scottish hedgehog also made by Peter Firmin. In the mid-1960s Basil became a supporting act for the magician David Nixon, upstaging Nixon on the latter's BBC1 show "Nixon at Nine-Five" in 1967 and "The Nixon Line" (1967–68), to such good effect that the fox was offered his own show. Basil thus acquired his own television series on the BBC, "The Basil Brush Show", which ran for 12 years from 1968 until 1980, in which he was supported by various famous stooges: first, in 1968, by the actor Rodney Bewes, known on the show as "Mr Rodney"; next, from
Merlin the Magician (comics) speaking backwards. Like numerous other magical heroes of the era, Merlin the Magician shares some similarities with Lee Falk's popular Mandrake the Magician strip, particularly in his appearance, which was a stereotypical prewar "stage magician" look, with a suit, mustache and cape. Like Zatara, who was similarly descended from a famous predecessor (Leonardo da Vinci), Merlin the Magician frequently invoked his magical effects by speaking them backwards (this attribute was given to him in National Comics #12 by writer-artist Fred Guardineer, who had himself previously created the backwards-talking Zatara for Action Comics). Merlin the Magician's final Quality Comics appearance was