My Own Morph and Chas

Before Wallace and Gromit started bagging Oscars for Aardman Studios, there was Morph. This mischievous little Plasticine character lived in a wooden artbox on Tony Hart's desk, and his brief but mayhem-filled appearances on TV's Take Hart soon became the stuff of legend.

Despite rumours of Morph's demise in the 2005 Aardman warehouse fire, he's very much alive, having escaped on his skateboard. Better still he's back to entertain a whole new generation of fans. The catch is you have to make him. It's easier than you think with My Own Morph.

Officially licensed, this memory-jogging playset comes with everything you need to make your own Morph. There are 3 blocks of terracotta-coloured Plasticine, 5 fun accessories - including a cricket bat, wizard's hat, skateboard, beard and comic book - and an instructional DVD containing a how-to guide along with 15 classic Morph TV adventures. It's enough to make you start gabbling away in speeded-up gobbledegook.


The second you open this colourful box of bits and bobs the memories will come flooding back. You can almost hear Tony Hart's plummy voice as the Deer Hunter theme plays in the background, and visualise Morph shaking his fist at Mr Bennett. If you can't, you're clearly a tad younger than us. But don't worry because My Own Morph will appeal to art and animation fans of all ages.

If you're wondering where the special Morph mould is, there isn't one. The idea is to follow the instructions and use your skill to fashion the Plasticine into something approximating the real thing. And that's the fun part because practice makes perfect.

Our early efforts resembled either Paul Scholes, Ian Hislop or Jimmy Somerville. But as you can see we've now got Morph down to a tee. In fact we just can't resist re-arranging his extremities, fiddling with his accessories and rolling him into a ball to start all over again. And neither will you. Anarchy!