Niddy Niddy Nod

The odd little boy with the body of a toy and the neck that works like a spring seemed forever in a jam. But at London's Stoll Theater last week, Little Noddy had plenty of friends. All he had to do when in trouble was to peer over the footlights and cry: "You'll help me, won't you, children?"--and hundreds of squeaky voices would answer: "Of course we will, Noddy. Of course!" In the six years since Author Enid Blyton first put him into a book. Little Noddy has amassed a formidable following.

Among Britain's moppet set, he is as famous as Pooh or Piglet, sells faster than Alice, is better known than Kenneth Grahame's Mole. He has appeared in eight 10,000-word books (10 million copies), five Noddy annuals, four strip books, 20 small books, been translated into everything from Swahili to Tamil to Hebrew. Last week, after he made his debut on the stage, London critics had to admit that Noddy in Toyland is a hit.

Five Hundred Slips. To Enid Blyton, success was predictable. She has developed such an instinct for what children like that she almost never fails to please. As a young woman, she had a school of her own. She taught all the subjects herself, wrote all the children's stories, started trying to sell them to publishers. By the time she married Surgeon Kenneth Darrell Waters, she had 500 rejection slips, but was still determined to make writing her career.

Today she is a sort of Edgar Wallace of the juvenile world. Not only can she finish a Little Noddy book for five-year-olds in a day, she also writes about Mr. Pink-Whistle for seven-year-olds, can dash off a 60,000-word adventure for "over elevenses" in a week. Some of these older books are really first-rate juvenile thrillers, have achieved such a vogue in the U.S. that public libraries can scarcely keep up with the demand. But just how many volumes she has produced in all, even Enid Blyton herself cannot tell. Best estimate: 370.

Somehow she also finds time to fill up the fortnightly Enid Blyton Magazine (circ. almost 300,000). She replies in writing to 3.000 fan letters a week, deals with 25 British and 40 foreign publishers, supervises four children's social clubs (365,000 members), one of which supports a convalescent home for children under five. Her well-known surgeon husband runs five different Enid Blyton companies, collects royalties from such products as Noddy chocolates, Noddy nighties and

Noddy village models. Enid Blyton has also obliged her fans with an autobiography. Its beginning: "If you came to tea with me, you would soon see where I live and what my home is like. You would walk down the country road looking for my house. Before you got there, you would probably say, 'That must be Green Hedges, Enid Blyton's house, because look--there's a black cocker spaniel sitting at the front gate.' You would be right." Parp! Parp! Last week, at the Stoll Theater, Noddy and his friends went through a typical Noddy plot. As the curtain opens, Noddy is peacefully driving his Toyland Taxi ("Parp parp! Parp parp!"), when all of a sudden the Red Goblins appear. They tip over lamp posts, steal the keys that wind up the clockwork clowns, let all the animals out of Noah's ark. And who gets blamed for all the mischief? Little "Niddy Niddy Nod" Noddy, of course.

Fortunately, Noddy is a popular fellow in Toyland. The Golliwogs like him, and so do Silky the Pixie, Big Ears the Brownie, and Mr. Pink-Whistle, "who goes about the world putting wrong things right." Thus, when Mr. Plod the Policeman wants to clap Noddy into jail on bread and water and rice pudding. Noddy's friends whisk him off on the Toyland Train ("Chuffity-chuffity-chuffity-chuff") to find the real culprits in Goblin-Land.

Naturally, everything turns out all right in the end--but not without plenty of screams and squeaks from the audience.

Will Noddy ever achieve the stature of an Alice or a Peter Pan? Most adults are apt to niddy nod at the idea. But anyhow, he will obviously be around for a while. Enid Blyton has just had her ninth Noddy novel published, and from her tidy house with its black cocker spaniel sitting at the gate, there is no telling how many more words will come. "Once I get started," says she blithely, "I've just got to go on and on. Oh, I love it!"

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