Sweep is a British puppet and television character popular in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and other countries.
Sweep is a grey glove puppet dog with long black ears who joined The Sooty Show in 1957, as a friend to fellow puppet Sooty.[1] He is a dim-witted dog with a penchant for bones and sausages.[2][3] Sweep is notable for his method of communication[4] which consists of a loud high-pitched squeak that gains its inflection from normal speech and its rhythm from the syllables in each word.
The rest of the cast, namely Soo and the presenter, could understand Sweep perfectly, and would (albeit indirectly) translate for the viewer.[5][6] The sound of Sweep's voice was achieved using a saxophone reed.[7] Versions of the puppet later sold as toys had an integral squeaker connected to an air bulb that was squeezed by hand.
Sweep's family first appeared on the Sooty Show in an episode called "Sweep's Family". He has a mother and father; a twin brother, Swoop; two cousins, Swipe and Swap[8] and another seven brothers in the litter (all of whom look exactly like him, and wear different coloured collars to tell each other apart).
Swipe and Swap are described as Sweep's brothers in the Sooty & Co. episode "Sweep's Family" and the Sooty Heights episode "The Hounds of Music".
^Tryhorn, Chris (26 June 2008). "Sooty sale heralds new series". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Archived from the original on 16 September 2015. Retrieved 7 September 2021. He would get into scrapes with Sweep, who spoke only in squeaks, the sensible Soo, and - in more recent series - his schoolboy cousin Scampi.
