[1] A number of different formats for Birthday People were tried out from 1993, including a nature theme presented by ex-Really Wild Show host Nicola Davies.
Chris Langmore, one of Westcountry's two continuity announcers, presented the show with science themes from locations around the South West.
From Plymouth City Airport he took the show high over the countryside, presenting one of the sequences from a light aircraft.
They would occasionally be joined by other puppet characters - the pirates Salvador Swash and Buckle the Seadog, their cleaner Lighthouse Lil, an errant marauding sock (a pastiche of Alien) and their resident scientist The Eminent Professor, who would frequently be put through painful and humiliating experiments to test a silly theory or would answer emails from the viewers at home (who seemed to include a large number of students).
The characters went on to star in their own half-hour Christmas specials in 2002 and 2003, in which Flotsam and Jetsam rescued Father Christmas from the clutches of Swash and Buckle and helped King Arthur recover the Holy Grail from marauding Vikings in an adventure through time (involving a Doctor Who pastiche).