Tetley Tea Folk

The Canadian copywriter John McGill Lewis (1929–2009) of the advertising agency McCann Erickson originated the Tetley Tea Folk in 1973, working with art director Peter Rigby, who created the original characters of the Tea Folk, before briefing Wyatt Cattaneo to animate them.

The series, from its start until the early 1980s, combined animation with live-action sets and "props", such as real tea bags, cups, saucers, etc.

The musical score for the "Tea Folk" song was composed by Ken Jones, with the lyrics coming from their originator J. M. Lewis.

Towards the end of the 1970s, the Tetley Tea Folk account moved to the advertising agency D'Arcy, Mac Manus and Macius.

There have been sixty-seven animated television adverts, and many appearances in papers, magazines, on packs, radio, the internet, as well as Tea Folk memorabilia.

Some well-known lines include: These, along with the original Tetley tune, and some notable soundtracks (Bill Withers’ "Lovely Day", Irving Berlin’s "Keep Me Warm", and "Reach Out I’ll Be There" by Holland, Holland and Dozier), have made Tetley’s Tea Folk adverts some of the most instantly recognizable[3] ever seen.

They remark on how far Tetley has come, with introductions of product lines such as Red bush, Green and Extra Strong tea.

Between 2013 till sometime in 2016, Channel 5 made a sponsorship with Tetley to broadcasting their family films as it shown Gaffer and Sydney in CGI, parodying movie genres.

Although he may not be the cleverest of people, his kind heart and occasional daftness mean that, even when he gets himself into trouble, he is well loved and highly thought of by his peers.

Maurice is the inventor, a mechanically minded engineering genius whose machines help to keep Tetley at the cutting edge of tea technology.

He is quiet, unassuming and practical with sparks of inspiration - an eccentric and gloriously unpredictable inventor constantly striving for excellence on behalf of Tetley.

He is fun loving, happy and exuberant, a young, cheeky character, whose occasional over-enthusiasm has been known to earn him a kindly reprimand from Gaffer, although it is always for his own good.

According to Collecticus magazine, a gold trimmed Morris Minor money box, released in September 2006, is the most valuable of the collectables, worth as much as £200 on the secondary market.