Otis the Aardvark was a puppet presenter on Children's BBC. Otis mainly presented the afternoon links on BBC One alongside the main CBBC presenters. Otis was thought to be inspired from some late '80s Children's BBC idents which ended with a voice proclaiming "Tell That aardvark it's a wrap". These idents led to much speculation as to what the phrase meant. However, these idents had been dropped a year or two before the character of Otis appeared. Dave Chapman was the puppeteer. He also performed in a number of other Children's BBC programmes for both incarnations, notably The Cat from Dick and Dom in Da Bungalow. When Fully Booked moved to Sundays on BBC2, the extended Saturday CBBC was renamed Saturday Aardvark, with Otis being a key feature. After leaving CBBC Otis appeared on a puppet based quiz show before the puppet was finally laid to rest, with the announcement given claiming that the character had gone to work at the BBC canteen. Otis was replaced by another puppet called Emlin the Gremlin. On December the 28th 2007, Otis reappeared on a special 'puppet' edition of the weakest link for the BBC. However he was voted off in the second round.
