Captain Pugwash Captain Pugwash Captain Pugwash is a fictional pirate in a series of British children's comic strips and books created by John Ryan. The character's adventures were adapted into a TV series, using cardboard cut-outs filmed in live-action (the first series was performed and broadcast live), also called "Captain Pugwash", first shown on the BBC in 1957, a later colour series, first shown in 1974–75, and a traditional animation series, "The Adventures of Captain Pugwash", first aired in 1998. The eponymous hero – Captain Horatio Pugwash – sails the high seas in his ship called the "Black Pig", ably assisted by
Captain Pugwash a pirate. The rest of the crew also found they were unable to operate without Tom, after he left with the captain when the crew mutinied. Tom is an expert concertina player, despite this being a 19th-century anachronism for an 18th-century pirate, and part of his repertoire is The Trumpet Hornpipe (the "Captain Pugwash" theme). He was portrayed with a Home Counties accent in the first television adaptation, and with an Irish accent in the 1997 series. Captain Pugwash's fearsome arch-enemy, captain of the "Flying Dustman" (a pun on the Flying Dutchman combined with a reference to the occupation of