Mr Chips is a popular character, and largely misunderstood! For instance did you know that it was Mr Chips who decided to retire after the last of the original series aired? Feeling bemused and embarrassed about the whole ‘snake charmer’ incident which saw him become a national figure of fun, he decided to leave ‘show business’ and settle down with his ‘nest egg’. For the last decade he’s enjoyed a quiet life playing online games in a large mansion in Surrey, much to the despair of his previous co-host Roy Walker, who insisted he was much too young for retirement. Mr Chips spent much of his time alone, as a way of avoiding the terrible affliction of having to act out every comment or sentence with huge comedy scissors or energetic dance routines.

Ironically, it was his love of online gaming that made him miss his old career! After winning fifty games of catchphrase online in a row, he decided to invest in a new sleek image and seek out a more up to date presenter, who could reinvent the old show with the help of a huge production team. Mr. Chips insisted on the very best special effects and his every diva demand was met with eager efficiency by the expensive team of staff at his disposal. Stephen Mulhern was chosen as his modern assistant, and Chips himself vetted every catchphrase for the new series, in order to avoid another embarrassing incident. The phrase ‘golden balls’ was immediately removed from the list, with Chips threatening to quit the show if he had to perform it!

Show producers were at first concerned that Chips’s career plan was a symptom of a ‘mid life crisis’, or just a celebrity ploy to revamp his yellow body. Psychologists met with him to confirm that he knew that the results would be permanent, and that he would never get back his 80’s style.

The new show was a great success and Mr Chips’s overhaul was popular with fans, who went online in their droves to ‘say what they saw’. Mulhern was popular too, although some purists found the show too different to the old version.