Noddy (character)
Noddy is a fictional character created by British children's author Enid Blyton.
One of the most enduring and best-loved of children's characters, Noddy is a little wooden doll who lives in Toyland. His best friend is Big-Ears - a gnome. Noddy lives next to a family of teddy bears, and owns a self-aware car. Noddy originally appeared in a series of illustrated books, but later became popular with a new generation of children as a result of an animated television adaptation.
Written at a time of segregation, the original Noddy stories featured "Gollywogs" - black-faced woollen dolls. These dolls were popular in the UK at the time the stories were written, but have fallen out of favour because of a better awareness of race relations.
Recently, in the TV series and a new series of books, Noddy has been updated, with the original Gollywog characters replaced by teddy bears and other sorts of toys, and with the addition of ethnic dolls.
Noddy is also the name for several species of tropical seabirds in the tern family
Noddy is also the name for an old English card game which is one of the ancestors of Cribbage.