Roland Rat (also Roland Rat Superstar) is a British television puppet character. He was created, operated and voiced by David Claridge, who had previously been behind the Mooncat puppet in the ITV children's television programme Get Up and Go!. Roland claimed to live beneath King's Cross railway station. He had an infant brother called Reggie, and a girlfriend: Glenis the Guinea Pig. His colleagues included dour Welsh technical whizz Errol the Hamster and over-enthusiastic self-appointed "number one ratfan" Kevin the Gerbil. British television broadcasting has a range of different broadcasters, broadcasting multiple channels over a variety of distribution media. ... Wayang shadow-puppet created in Bali, in the early 20th century. ... Echomen is an electronic music production trio consisting of Chris Scott, Anton Fielding, and Graeme “Cheb” Stewart. ... ITV (Independent Television) is the name popularly given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority (ITA) to provide competition to the BBC. In England, Wales and southern Scotland, the network has been rebranded to ITV1 by ITV plc, the owners of... Childrens television series are television programs designed for and marketed to children, normally aired during the morning and afternoon hours, mainly before and after school. ... Kings Cross station (often spelt Kings Cross on platform signs) is a railway station in the district of the same name in northeast central London. ...

Roland Rat was introduced to ailing breakfast television network TV-am by Greg Dyke and was generally regarded as its saviour, being described as "the only rat to join a sinking ship". After a couple of months on TV-am, Roland took the audience from 100,000 to 1.8 million. The last minutes of Breakfast Television (Toronto) on November 16, 2004 Liza playing ping-pong with the previous guest (now off screen), while the camera begins to cut to Kevin for a news update Breakfast Television, also known as BT, is a Canadian morning news and entertainment program which airs... TV-am was a breakfast television station that broadcast in the United Kingdom from 1983 to 1992. ... Gregory Dyke (born 20 May 1947) is a journalist and broadcaster. ...

In 1985 he transferred to the BBC where he had a number of shows through the late 1980s, most notably Roland Rat the Series, a chat show supposedly set in Roland's sewer home, now converted into a high-tech media centre called the Ratcave. In a similar manner to The Muppet Show and its sequels, the show would intersperse the chat show segments with a storyline involving some sort of situation "behind the scenes". He also appeared in two spoof drama series, Tales of the Rodent Sherlock Holmes, in which he played Holmes with Kevin as Dr Watson, and Ratman, a Batman spoof with Kevin as his sidekick, "Pink Bucket Man". 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation, invariably known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of £4 billion. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... A talk show (U.S.) or chat show (Brit. ... The Muppet Show was a television program featuring a cast of Muppets (diverse hand-operated puppets, typically with oversized eyes and large moving mouths) produced by Jim Henson and his team from 1976 to 1981. ... Sherlock Holmes as imagined by the seminal Holmesian artist, Sidney Paget, in The Strand magazine. ... Dr. John H. Watson is a fictional character, the sidekick of Sherlock Holmes, the fictional 19th century detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle. ... Batman (originally referred to as the Bat-Man and still referred to at times as the Batman) is a DC Comics fictional superhero who first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in May 1939. ...

In the late 1990s he reappeared on Channel 5, in LA Rat, which featured Roland and his friends touring Los Angeles. The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Flag Seal Nickname: City of Angels Location Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates , Government State County California Los Angeles County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,290. ...

The video game

In 1985 Ocean Software produced a game called Roland's Rat Race for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64. The player had to guide Roland through the sewers of London and collect nine pieces of a door which, when complete, would allow him to rescue his companions in time for an appearance on TV-am. Roland had to avoid enemies in the form of animated wellington boots which could be temporarily incapacitated with a squirt of glue, which could also be used to stop tube trains in order to ride on them. The C-64 version made especially good use of the graphics and audio hardware. The familiar Ocean logotype had an often prominent placement on the box art and is recognized by many people. ... The Sinclair ZX Spectrum was a small home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research. ... The Commodore 64 is the best selling single personal computer model of all time. ... Image of a sewer pipe // Function Sewers transport wastewater from buildings to treatment facilities. ... A pair of Wellington boots The Wellington boot, also known as a welly, a wellie, a gumboot or a rubber boot, is a type of boot based upon Hessian boots worn and popularised by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington and fashionable among the British aristocracy in the early 19th... Historically, glue only refers to protein colloids prepared from animal tissues. ... This article is about the British underground transport system. ...

One historic aspect of this version is that the programmers cleverly overlapped four of the C=64's hardware sprites (each in 2-color mode; one color of your choice and "transparent") so as to allow for each pixel to have a different color without having to resort to "multicolor mode" which typically would have meant cutting graphic resolution in half (horizontally) as seen in the top of the screen in scenes with the cars, or the opening splash page [1]. This version also used raster interupts to change screen modes on a per-line basis, allowing different video modes to be used depending on the effect needed. The top section being a color text mode using programmable custom characters (320x200), the car section beneath that using multicolor mode (effectively 160 pixels wide) while Roland himself (at bottom of screen) retains full 320x200 resolution. Example: [2]

Prior to the Amiga, Atari ST and Mac II, color resolution was usually half that of actual pixelclock resolution (IE., a 320x200 2-color screen would end up being 160x200 if you wanted to directly use more than 2 colors). Usage of hardware sprites in this manner allowed the Roland character to remain uniquely colorful while at full 320x200 screen resolution, regardless of the colors or video modes active underneath him. In effect, it allowed color on a pixel-by-pixel basis, in addition to all the other video modes that could exist beneath a hardware sprite. (The term "hardware sprite" is used here only because there is much confusion today among non-engineers regarding what constitutes a real sprite.) The C-64's Roland character consisted of 4 sprites, each one colored either white, blue, black or grey. The black "layer" was used to give more definition and separation, giving Roland almost a comic-book outlined appearence. The C=64 version of Roland's Rat Race is considered an example of what can be done when programmers understand the hardware well. Except for the composite nature of the C64's output, portions of this game's graphics stand up fairly well to early low-res games on the Amiga, Atari ST and Mac II.

Example: [3]

The music for the game was composed by Martin Galway and has since been remixed by Jogeir Liljedahl and the C64 Revival band Press Play on Tape. The game may be downloaded for use on a C64 emulator, from the C64 unlimited website and for use on a ZX Spectrum emulator, from World Of Spectrum. A screenshot of the Commodore 64 version of the game is available from the Video Game Museum. Note the fine color detail of Roland on the bottom pathway. Martin Galway (born January 3, 1966, Belfast, Northern Ireland) is one of the best known composers of music for the Commodore 64 sound chip, the SID soundchip. ... Press Play on Tape is a revival and tribute rock band to the music used in games on the old home computer Commodore 64. ... An emulator reproducing a console games playable atmosphere on a Windows computer. ... A screenshot of this page being displayed in the Mozilla web browser. ...

A Java-based Spectrum Sinclair emulator with the Sinclair version of the game is playable here: [4] Note the difference in approach to color and graphics and lack of soundtrack.

A map to the game (at least the Spectrum Sinclair version) is available here: [5]

Trivia

• Roland had three UK chart hit singles including "Rat Rapping" and an album The Cassette Of The Album between 1983 and 1985. A follow-up LP, Living Legend subsequently appeared but flopped, despite having three tracks produced by Stock Aitken Waterman. Kevin the Gerbil also had a top 50 single.
• In 1992 David Claridge also operated "Brian the Dinosaur" on the Saturday morning children's show Parallel 9.
• Roland made a brief return in early 2003 as a guest presenter of CiTV.[6]
• Roland Rat's car "the Ratmobile" was a bright pink 1957 Ford Anglia
• During Christmas 1985, British Telecom operated a free "ratphone" number on 0800 800 800
• Roland Ratzenberger, the now deceased Formula One driver gained small fame from Roland Rat, as their names were similar.

• There are four sprites used to create Roland in the Commodore 64 version of the game.

A collection of various CD singles In music, a single is a short recording of one or more separate tracks. ... An album is a collection of related audio tracks distributed to the public. ... (From left to right) Pete Waterman, Matt Aitken and Mike Stock in 1987. ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... CITV Logo This article is about ITVs childrens television brand. ... BT Group plc (which trades as just BT, and is commonly known by its former name, British Telecom) is the privatised former British state telecommunications operator. ... Roland Ratzenberger (July 4, 1960 – April 30, 1994) was an Austrian Formula One driver who died tragically during qualifying for the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix, the same race that took the life of three-time world champion Ayrton Senna, and seriously injured Rubens Barrichello (in practice). ... Formula One - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ...

External links

• Ratfans.com - Unofficial Tribute Site
• Roland Rat Fans Message Board
• TV-am Site