Fredd Bear: A TV Trailblazer

The birth of the bear

In 1964, when The Children’s Show was about to debut, its producers were looking for a bear suit. A segment involving a scout troop and a bushfire required a bear to steal some sausages from a frypan. Tedd Dunn, Channel O’s wardrobe manager, couldn’t locate a bear suit anywhere, so he made his own, based on a mask from a magic shop, foam padding and faux fur. Now they had a suit, but no one to fill it: Dunn had made the suit on his own tall frame, and with its hat it stood at six-foot-nine. Finally, thinking it would be a one-off, he agreed to appear as the Bear. Slipping off his shoes, still in his business shirt, cufflinks and suit pants, he stepped into the history books.

The Bear becomes Fredd

The producers of The Children’s Show liked the Bear, and coaxed Dunn into appearing again – and again. Soon, he was co-hosting with Nancy Cato five days a week, and was one of the program’s most beloved characters. A competition to name the Bear came up with ‘Fred’, which Dunn thought suited him: ‘It had a warm, baggy kind of feel. Yes, he was a Fred.’ One of the wardrobe staff wrote ‘Fredd Bear’, riffing on Tedd, on his dressing-room door. It stuck.

The show, Dunn says, was different in the way it addressed its audience. ‘It talked to children, not at them.’ The mischievous Fredd Bear was based on a three-year-old child. ‘He kept looking down his overalls, which was very embarrassing to a lot of people! All these things that little kids did, that they related to … that’s one of the reasons he was loved so much.’

Fredd gets a soul

Dunn had never studied acting or movement (although he was a competent figure skater in his teens, and as Fredd Bear appeared for six weeks with Ice Capades in America). He had to feel his way into the character’s physicality. He worked out early on that walking like a human didn’t look natural, so he learned to walk ‘like a bow-legged cowboy’. Later, his mastery of the unwieldy suit would allow Fredd to go-go dance and even tap dance.

The most important thing Dunn learnt was how to make Fredd expressive. ‘By moving my head a certain way and moving my shoulders a certain way, I could make him look as though he didn’t understand what you meant, or I could make him sad … or I could make him appear extremely aloof, or bored. I was able to give the bear a soul.’

Fredd becomes a star

By 1965, Fredd Bear had become so popular that Channel O decided to create a show for him. Nancy Cato joined him on The Magic Circle Club, set in the Magic Forest. Fredd acquired a cousin, Fee Fee Bear (played by John Michael Howson), and a host of friends, including Mother Hubbard, Curley Dimples and Crystal Ball. The program ran until 1967. Dunn then moved on to Fredd Bear’s Breakfast-A-Go-Go and The Wonderful World of the Young, later Fredd Bear’s Super Cartoon Show. Along the way, Fredd became famous. The Magic Circle Club received thousands of fan letters each week, and a cast appearance in Perth attracted three times as many people as that of the Queen Mother (Dunn, a staunch royalist, was horrified). Jacques Tati, the celebrated French director and mime artist, even agreed to appear on the show with Fredd; sadly, he had a heart attack the night before and had to fly back to France.

In a film probably made as a promotion for The Wonderful World of the Young, Fredd has obviously hit the big time. The clip frames him as a celebrity, less a TV personality than an A-list actor. To a jazzed-up version of the 'Love Theme' from Franco Zeffirelli’s hit 1968 film Romeo and Juliet, he enters the scene in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce and is saluted by the doorkeeper. Fredd has his own customised psychedelic-print luggage, and gets a face-brush from adoring make-up girls as well as a kiss from his co-star Judy Banks.

All this heady stuff never meant as much to Dunn as the times when he and his Magic Circle colleagues could truly bring joy and comfort to children. The cast trained in child psychology to be able to cope with distressing visits to burns units and cancer wards; on one devastating occasion, they went to the Salvation Army’s ‘Home for Unwanted Children’ in Perth. Dunn and Cato visited one young fan with leukemia every week to read her a story while she patted Fredd’s head.

The perils of beardom

The Fredd Bear costume on display in The Library at the NFSA, 2023.

Over the years, the Fredd suit took a savage toll on Dunn’s body. It was so hot, and made him sweat so much, that he had to wear all-white clothing to perform in it; one time he wore coloured socks, and the dye from them leaked under his toenails and gave him peritonitis. The suit weighed over 30 kilos dry, and would become heavier as he sweated. When Fredd appeared at the Moomba Festival to present a floral wreath to Prince Phillip, Dunn had to sit for hours in the sun. He just managed to present the wreath and make it back to the car before collapsing. ‘When they ripped the head off, steam came out of the costume. I ended up in a decompression chamber … The effect was similar to the bends. I got a lot of fluid on my lungs, and for three months I couldn’t appear on the show, which distressed me no end.’ To cover his absence, the Magic Circle writers sent Fredd on a holiday to Surfer’s Bearadise.

That was the suit’s most blatant attempt on Dunn’s life, but there were others. When it was stored in a room with a gas leak, it absorbed enough gas for Dunn to be ‘seeing stars’ after wearing it. When he jumped into a swimming pool as Fredd at a family gathering, the quilted foam became instantly waterlogged and dragged him under; he nearly drowned. The ‘cowboy’ walk led to two hip replacements later in life, and he also ended up with an enlarged aortic valve from all the overheating. Nevertheless, Dunn loved Fredd and cared for the four versions of his suit long after their career together had ended.

Fredd’s legacy

Without Fredd, there would be no Humphrey B Bear (who was created by a rival station six months after The Magic Circle Club aired). Max Bartlett, the Magic Circle scriptwriter, ended up in Perth developing Fat Cat and Friends. Shirl’s Neighbourhood, with its bunch of bushland pals and the human-sized Norm the Kangaroo, also owes a debt to Fredd and his friends. Wherever there’s someone sweating in a furry suit to delight kids … the spirit of Fredd Bear will live on.

Looking for more?

• Learn more about how the Fredd Bear costume is preserved at the NFSA
• Wish a happy 60th birthday to Humphrey B Bear
• Tune into our celebration of 50 years of colour TV in Australia

Main image: Fredd Bear costume on display in The Library at the NFSA, 2025. Photography: Grace Costa