Harvy's House

Harvy's House was a Kuboian Saturday evening children's variety television series that aired on Bumper's Block. It was hosted by Mike Marion and a puppet character called Harvy, a purple alien who was voiced by Roddy Graston, and was divided into multiple different segments, including interviews, previews of other children's programmes and games, broadcast live in front of an audience of children.

The show ran for a total of three series from 1993 until 1996, where it was cancelled due to budget cuts made by the TVVC. It occupied the 7:00p.m. timeslot for all three of its series. A total of seventy nine episodes were produced.

History and production
When deciding on the mascot for Bumper's Block, Dominic Halls came up with a green spherical cyclops creature and a purple one. Ultimately, the green one was chosen, whilst the purple one was chosen for the character of Harvy. Unlike Bumper, who could only make alien sounds, Harvy was fully capable of human speech.

Harvy's House premiered on 21st August, 1993, running for three series and 79 episodes. Every episode of the show was recorded live, and the show maintained a 7:00p.m. time slot throughout its entire run.

Harvy's voice actor Roddy Graston believes that the show was produced under a tight budget, as he was given very little time to practice his lines. A few of the games played on the show were originally supposed to be their own programme, but were added to Harvy's House to save on money. In a 2003 interview, he said that the show was supposed to premiere in January 1993, but got postponed because some of the features weren't ready. Later, in a 2018 YouTube comment thread, he revealed that the children were allowed to avoid getting gunged on the show if they wanted to, even if they lost the games they took part in.

Celebrity guests
Celebrities would occasionally make appearances on the show, and were typically either popular singers at the time or voice actors for children's programmes.

Harvy's Sneak Peak
Harvy's Sneak Peak was a segment that showed sneak peaks of programmes that would be airing later on Bumper's Block that night. They were typically used for new programmes such as Greenwood Forest, The Adventures of Charlie and Tutu and Sonic the Hedgehog.

Viewer of the Week
Viewer of the Week featured a child or group of siblings who were interviewed by Mike and Harvy. They were typically asked questions such as what their favourite part of Harvy's House was, and what their favourite Bumper's Block programme was.

Gunge
Harvy's House featured gunge in some of its games, typically the last game played before the episode concluded. The gunge used was always either a green or purple colour, likely to resemble the colours of Harvy himself, as well as Bumper. The game changed several times throughout the show's run, but the main punishment always remained the same - whoever finished in last place would be put in a tube, get strapped to a chair via a lap belt, and have a large amount of gunge poured over them.

In series one, a child contestant from the audience would take part in the game against an adult contestant, who was usually a celebrity or popular voice actor at the time. If the child contestant won, they would receive a prize. The prize for winning varied, but was usually a SNES or PlayStation console bundled with a game, or a VHS player bundled with a tape. Whoever lost was gunged, though sometimes the adult contestant was gunged even if they won.

Starting in series two, more than two contestants, consisting of both children and adults, would take part in the final game - the number varied, with one show in particular having twenty people take part. As usual, whoever finished last would be gunged, but child contestants who finished in a higher position often received better prizes.

A few celebrities, including Bumper's Block co-host Naomi Karma, as well as Caroline Watson under her Penny Arcade alter ego, were gunged on Harvy's House. They generally received a more over-the-top gunging compared to most contestants, with the room darkening and an alarm playing during the countdown, as well as an evil laughter playing during the gunging.

Availability
Though many episodes of Harvy's House are available on YouTube, several are considered lost, particularly from the first series. It is widely believed that TVVC junked all editions of the show in January 2005, when it was reported that the company were disposing of items and equipment deemed "no longer of practical use". In 2021, a Discord server dedicated to finding the missing episodes was created.

Graston has several episodes in his personal collection, but these are not publicly available.

Bootleg media
In the mid 1990s, it was reported that bootleg VHS tapes featuring episodes of the show were in circulation across Europe and South America.

Two bootleg video games starring Harvy developed by a Russian company were released for the SNES in 1995 and 1996. The first, Harvy Adventor, is an original 2D side-scrolling platformer with sound effects and music taken from other SNES games. The second, Harvy Adventor 2, is a ported reskin of Garfield: Caught in the Act.