Whitlingham Robotic Animatronic Hand Lion

Mr. Whitlingham left the room and said ‘can you sort this out by the time I’ve come back?’

If you don’t instantly get this one, it’s a bit difficult to explain and you are right to be confused. It centres around the legend that is Bob Mortimer and one of his equally legendary appearances on Would I Lie to You? – a show not affiliated with Charles & Eddie, as far as I’m aware. In the segment he tells a trademark tall tale about his British Politics and Government tutor Bill Whitlingham and how he and his friends pranked him using a Dictaphone. The story ends up being true, though you can’t help feel that the hand lion element *isn’t* true and merely an embellishment to throw the other contestants off the scent.

A minor point of housekeeping is how you’d spell ‘Whitlingham’ and whether it’s two ts or one. I went with the single t format for no other reason that there’s a place in Norfolk that just uses the one. People have posted in assorted forums of the internet about the hand lion actually existing, but personally I still think it’s just a load of bollocks Bob’s made up on the spot. This doesn’t cut it for me. Plus also it looks too modern for an incident that happened when he was in the sixth form circa 1977.

Either way, because it’s pitched as a fairly antiquated item, I’ve tried to reflect that in the design. If you research toys from the 1950s-70s and you do come across some quite functional fare. And a fair few of them have a very open approach to typography. Basically – the more the merrier. In the end, I think it ended up looking like one of those mental Viz ads.

Given that both Bob and Viz are from up North East way, it ended up being a very happy accident.