Mr. Blobby Is British Answer To Our Barney

LONDON - Forget "Middlemarch," "Civilization" and all those other highbrow BBC programs.

Americans are getting a taste of the stuff Britons really watch: Mr. Blobby, a fat, clumsy, pink creature resembling a giant, polka-dotted jellyfish.

For the British Broadcasting Corp., he's been very, very profitable. Now he carries the corporation's hopes of beating Barney the purple dinosaur in the rich U.S. children's market.

"We're talking tens of billions of dollars here," Michael Gury, vice president for product marketing at BBC Lionheart Television, said Friday.

Or as Mr. Blobby would say: "Blobby! Blobby! Blobby!"

A long way from Noel Coward, but it works. Lyrics crafted from Mr. Blobby's one-word vocabulary produced a No. 1 record - Britain's best-selling single of 1993.

Not to mention the Blobby video, Blobby T-shirts, Blobby bubble bath, Blobby wallpaper, Blobby pink lemonade and a Blobby theme park.

When Mr. Blobby visited the old seaside resort of Brighton recently, the BBC said he drew 19,000 fans.

"Only the British would travel hundreds of miles to pay homage to a lump of pink rubber," says Noel Edmonds, host of "Noel's House Party," Mr. Blobby's TV showcase.