Wanderly Wagon was more than a kids show. At a time when there was feck all else for Irish children to watch it was an adventure that rolled into their living rooms every weekend. The idea for Wanderly Wagon came from Jim O’Hare, inspired by a family holiday in a horse-drawn caravan. Together with Don Lennox and Eugene Lambert, of puppet theatre fame, he transformed the idea into a series for RTÉ. When it premiered in September of 1967, Irish television was barely out of its own infancy. For fifteen years, until its final broadcast in 1982, the aul caravan took viewers on journeys through enchanted forests and under the sea and even into the sky and outer space using the then-revolutionary chroma key effects and perhaps some magical cigarrettes which were also wandering around Dublin at that time. It was groundbreaking kids television that parents also threw their eye on. What makes the artistry and acting all the more incredible was those early puppet and prop heavy episodes were broadcast live! At the heart of the show was Irelands answer to Jim Henson and Mr Rogers rolled in to one, Eugene Lambert. He played the bumbling but big-hearted O’Brien while simultaneously voicing and operating several of the show’s puppet stars. Judge the dog, Mr. Crow who lived in the cuckoo clock, and the sly Foxy Loxy became household names. The human cast included Nora O’Mahony as the kind and wise Godmother and Bill Golding as Rory, the dashing adventurer with a taste for song. The show was a Lambert family business. Eugene’s wife and ten children (hello Tommy Bowe) helped in the production. It was actually only later they opened the Lambert Puppet Theatre in Monkstown, a place that became almost as iconic as the wagon itself. The show’s influence extended beyond just entertainment. Judge the dog became the face of the “Safe Cross Code,” teaching a generation how to safely cross the road with the unforgettable jingle: “One, two, three, safe cross.” The popularity of Wanderly Wagon eventually led to spin-offs, most famously Fortycoats & Co. We have visited the real, quite different and remarkable Fortycoats previously in the DTM. That gentleman is well worth honouring and remembering in his own brilliant light apart from the namesake kids character. The wagon itself has been preserved and can now be seen at Tinahely Farm in County Wicklow, with a smaller replica displayed at The Little Museum of Dublin.