Emu returns to British television after 20 years - with Rod Hull's son - Showbiz

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But no more. Emu is back, but he's been tamed for a 21st-century audience.

The notorious puppet will return in a new series next month, nearly 20 years after he was last on screen.

But his vicious attacks on unsuspecting guests will no longer take place unprovoked.

Instead, say the show's producers, he will only lash out in self-defence.

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Temper tamed: the revamped Emu, with Rod Hull's 30-year-old son Toby

It is a far cry from Emu's heyday during the Seventies when, with Rod Hull, he breached social boundaries by attacking everyone from the Queen Mother to, most famously, Michael Parkinson on his own chat show.

Parky, who was knocked off his chair and forced to wrestle with the puppet, later said of the encounter: "I hope I never see that damned bird again."

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Attack: Emu (above with Rod Hull) makes a grab for Michael Parkinson

The new 26-part series launches on the CITV channel with Toby Hull, the 30-year-old son of the late Rod, who died in 1999 after a freak fall at his East Sussex home.

Executive producer Christopher Pilkington says: "We are reworking this for six-to eight-year-olds and there is no place for gratuitous violence."