Joe and Petunia


Joe and Petunia is a four part series of public information films in the UK. The series was made by Nicholas Cartoons, which was also responsible for the 1978 television series Willo the Wisp. The films were animated and featured Joe, a tiny little man in pinstripes, and Petunia, his wife who wore a hat and sunglasses. The voices were played by Wendy Craig as Petunia, later replaced by Brigit Forsyth for the last film, and Peter Hawkins as Joe. In each film, they caused danger with their avoidable accidents, advising the public on what not to do in a similar situation.

Films

The public information films these characters appeared in were:

Remaster

The films were remastered in 2006 to commemorate the Central Office of Information's 60th anniversary and one film was publicly played each week. There was then a vote of which film was the best out of each of them.

Relation to Harry Potter franchise

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling states that the character of Petunia from these films inspired the naming of Harry Potter's maternal aunt, Petunia Dursley, writing on Pottermore that:
"'Petunia' is the name that I always gave unpleasant female characters in games of make believe I played with my sister, Di, when we were very young. Where I got it, I was never sure, until recently a friend of mine played me a series of public information films that were shown on television when we were young... One of them was an animation in which a married couple sat on a cliff enjoying a picnic and watching a man drowning in the sea below... The husband called his wife Petunia, and I suddenly wondered whether that wasn't where I had got this most unlikely name, because I have never met anybody called Petunia, or, to my knowledge, read about them.... The cartoon Petunia was a fat, cheery character, so all I seem to have taken is her name."