Toots

  • Toots – First Appearance – Bunty: #01 (18 January 1958)
  • Artist: Bill Ritchie

Plot/ Thoughts

It wasn’t all drama, orphans and ballet in Bunty. There were a variety of humour strips that ran in Bunty. Most were a page long though some extended to two pages, others like Haggis, and from later issues, Girl Talk, were just a few panels at the end of the page.

Toots was a long running strip in Bunty. There was no continuous plot to follow so it didn’t always appear in consecutive issues, it was just a light-hearted funny strip. It was about a young girl, Toots,that wore a polka-dot dress and got into various adventures every week.

It was drawn by Bill Ritchie who is probably best known for his strips in comics like Beano, Beezer and Topper such as Sweet Sue, Smiffy, Baby Crockett and Gnatasha.  Some stories had Toots not really winning at the end of the story.  Such as a story where she is told she is needed for a “leading” part of the dramatic society ballet only for the strip to end with her leading people to their seats.

Other times she would come up on top of the situation. Whether it was outsmarting her friends or making use of an umbrella on a dry day.

A lot of the time she would exasperate her parents, usually not intentionally. In one strip she is making noise by wearing her mother’s shoes and ends up getting a telling off from her parents for scaring them.  So she switches to slippers and ends up scaring them by “sneaking” up on them!

Whatever the situation, it was always a fun read.

Annual Appearances:

  • Toots: Bunty Annual 1960
  • Toots: Bunty Annual 1976
  • Toots: Bunty Annual 1980
  • Toots: Bunty Annual 1983
  • Toots: Bunty Annual 1985
  • Toots: Bunty Annual 1990
  • Toots: Bunty Annual 1991
  • Toots: Bunty Annual 1992
  • Toots: Bunty Annual 1993
  • Toots: Bunty Annual 1994
  • Toots: Bunty Annual 1996

5 thoughts on “Toots

  1. Toots was great. I remember one episode where she found a lost parrot and spends most the story trying to find it’s owner. In the very last panel, he recites his owner’s name and address!

  2. I wasn’t really a great fan of cartoon strips. But I did love Toots in the Bunty. Her Mum too was great. Old fashioned and was so down to earth and sensible!

  3. The one I clearly remember was when Toots had a new pair of shoes .She proudly sat on a wall hoping everyone would notice them .As she sat there she drummed the backs against the wall and to her dismay , then realised she had worn them out ….Best day of the week when my Bunty was delivered was Tuesday .I always read Toots first

    1. I remember a Toots story where Toots tries to cheat Santa by cutting out the bottoms of her stockings to give the impression they are bottomless and he will keep stuffing presents into them. Santa does not fall for that and his response is to give her a new pair of socks. But he does leave her other presents downstairs.

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