Billy Bunter

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Billy Bunter, the "Fat Owl of the Remove", is a fictional character created by Charles Hamilton (using the nom de plume of Frank Richards) for stories set at Greyfriars School in the boys' weekly magazine The Magnet (published from 1908 to 1940). In his essay "Boys' Weeklies" (1940), George Orwell acknowledged the strength of the character as shown below: Template:Cquote

One of the appeals of the stories is Hamilton's ability to evoke a whole school. Virtually all of Bunter's form feature to some extent, centering on the "Famous Five" of Harry Wharton, Bob Cherry, Frank Nugent, Johnny Bull and Hurree Jamset Ram Singh (known as "Inky" to his politically incorrect friends). Enid Blyton may have borrowed the term "Famous Five" for her own series of adventure stories. There are also characters from many of the other forms (including their form masters), and even from other schools, such as Highcliffe. Shady characters like the rich and spoilt Herbert Vernon-Smith The Bounder provide dash to the narratives.

Bunter is generally a bumbler, getting into trouble through a combination of greed, stupidity, and a low but harmless cunning. It is customary to find him hiding from pursuers behind a sofa or a door, and upon discovery babbling "No.... I'm not here!". Yet Bunter brings to bear some unique skills such as ventriloquism, which he uses with telling effect; he also tends to solve mysteries by bumbling into the solution. In fact, one is reminded of the ventriloquist skills of another fat (but highly intelligent) mystery solver - Frederick Trotteville, aka Fatty, of another Enid Blyton "Five" collection: The Five Find-Outers.

Billy Bunter was played by Gerald Campion in a BBC television series from 1952 to 1961. In the 1980s, a chain of fast food restaurants called Bunter's experienced brief success in Britain. These restaurants prominently featured images of Billy Bunter but did nothing else to evoke the Greyfriars atmosphere, selling standard fast food when they might have offered "school dinners".

Incidentally, the character very closely inspired Cyril, a mischievous schoolboy who appeared in the Doctor Who episode The Celestial Toymaker. Bunter's fans were offended that their favorite character should be made into a villain.

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