F is for Festive Post (Festival; Part 1)

And a Merry Christmas to all our readers, 1,500 in 30 days, thanks to all. Thought I'd do a bit of a seasonal post today, and look at one of the more obscure British producers - Festival.

The figures they are most noted for, known as 'Snow-babies'. These are vaguely 1950's kids in generic woollen/kapok? romper suits enjoying the snow, and were primarily designed to attend the Royal Icing of an Empire-standard, stiff-upper-lipped, rock hard, log of Christmas Cake, hey, don't argue, people did themselves injuries trying to cut into those things, knives were broken and teeth were lost, once entry had been forced - due to post war privations the 'icing' was - I think - in fact a semi-edible concrete!

The normal colour was white with red gloves and blue boots, the Yellow one is probably a late production eye-catcher?

Two styrene HK copies of the Festival poses, and a Muttley the Dog from the 'Wacky Races' and 'Catch that Pigeon' (is that what the off-shoot was called? Dick Dastardly?) T.V. cartoons. Muttly came with the marked Festival sled he's lying on, yet he is in a quite solid vinyl, not a Festival material at all, however he fits the sled perfectly, so I suspect Festival bought him in (possibly on commission) from someone like Bully or Heimo in order to take advantage of a popular slice of Watch With Mother. [04/03/2012 - He's Corgi! just happens to fit the Festival sledge!]

The Festival Santa's with an HK copy top right, the copy is again in a hard styrene. The sledge rider is in two distinct versions, one (far right) much deeper than the other (riding), I tried to show this in the photo, but fear I failed! It also has a different fixing system, the left-hand one is glued on, while the right-hand one has a locating-stud type feature.