The Herne Bay Telly-Go-Round

People often ask me why I like odd things and my reply would be - life's strange, so enjoy it.  Anyway, I do see the bizarre and the surreal popping up pretty much everywhere and quite frankly, I revel in it.  One of my current obsessions, of which I have many - the TV quiz Pointless being one of them, ditto my new Philips electronic flosser (don't ask...)

Right, the Herne Bay Telly-Go-Round is a local phenomenon - it's a kind of sideshow attraction funded and run by the local Rotary Club and is basically an automaton featuring past and present childrens' TV characters and is rather nicely filmed in this YouTube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoPhJmRwzXU  My son absolutely adores it, as do quite a few people who meander down the seafront, I think it's because it's a mixture of rather quaint poorly-maintained figures and hugely inaccurate models - i.e. Thomas The Tank Engine is painted the wrong shade of blue and sports a face daubed with icky grey paint.  Sometimes they'll add another plush model, but the remainder of the characters will be sadly ignored as a result.

I've taken a few rather rubbish pictures on my phone to illustrate the point:

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They're all rather shabby aren't they?  Is that a bit of a Viz 'up the arse corner' scene I spy with the Fraggles?  Obscene, especially in front of the kiddies.  Also, who on earth was/is 'Wiggli Willi'?  The only reference I can find using Google's safe search function is an arachnid character who helps children with their counting?  I mean, don't get me wrong, part of the reason I go on breaks to the seaside is for a bit of 'Wiggli Willi', well that and copious amounts of ice cream anyway....