Children (It's Raining Gin)

The Sooty Show had an audience of children.

In the latter half of the 20th century, for a special episode, Matthew Corbett addressed the audience several times: he greeted the children when the episode began; he told them about the trip to the seaside that he had planned; he told them to imagine adverts for something they were fond of, such as chocolate or "that toy you've got your eye on" during the episode's break; he expected them to have made a cuppa during said break; telling them that the rain inside the chippy wasn't from a leak but from a cloud that had followed him, Sooty, Sweep, and Iris Wildthyme inside; telling them not to imitate Iris climbing on a wet table; chanting "IZ-ZY WHI-ZZY, LET'S GET BUSY" to help Sooty use his magic wand; telling them to ask their grandparents who Gene Kelly was; and as the sun was setting and Soo and Panda had returned from their lunch in Paris, Matthew ended the episode by asking the trio to wave and say goodbye to the audience, in part to make sure things didn't get too silly after Sooty and Sweep squirted him with their gin pistols. (PROSE: It's Raining Gin ^[+]Loading...{"page":"134-138","1":"It's Raining Gin (short story)"})

Behind the scenes

While Matthew does address "the audience", they are diegetic viewers of The Sooty Show, not the actual the readers of the short story.