Ukip deputy leader Paul Nuttall has denied being the actor who played Bungle the bear on 1970s and 1980s children's TV show Rainbow.
Nuttall was forced to deny rumours that he had worn a bear suit to play the clumsy, brown furry character after internet pranksters edited his Wikipedia page.
The page for the MEP was changed to say: “Nuttall was the original Bungle in children’s television show Rainbow.”
Nuttall denied playing the furry bear Bungle
Nuttall told The Daily Mirror: “I think this is probably the funniest thing I’ve ever read about myself on the internet. I’m all for it.”
Nuttall, the MEP for Merseyside, Lancashire, Cumbria, Cheshire and Greater Manchester, pointed out that it would have been tricky for him to have played Bungle.
“Considering I wasn’t even born when Rainbow started, it makes it very difficult indeed for this to be true," he said.
“But I do find it really funny that people are making things like this up.”
Bungle appeared on Rainbow, the British TV show for pre-school children which ran from 1972 to 1992.
Bungle and the Rainbow gang
Nuttall says he wasn't inside the Bungle suit
He was in fact played by four different actors: John Leeson, Stanley Bates, Malcolm Lord and Paul Cullinan, the Liverpool Echo reported.
Bungle starred with Zippy, an orange puppet with a zip for a mouth and a head shaped like rugby ball, and George, a shy pink hippopotamus.
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Nuttall's Wikipedia page has now been corrected.
It contains details such as the fact that he was educated at Savio High School in Bootle and has a masters degree from Liverpool Hope University, specialising in British Edwardian politics.