G'day Mark (and Creekwalker),

I don't know where your puppet got the name Bunyip from - I don't know of any other usage apart from the Australian creature of Aboriginal myth. We use the word widely, but it came from the Wemba-wemba word banib, a language of people who lived west of modern Melbourne, Victoria - in the southeast corner of Australia.

Another name for a similar creature of Aboriginal myth is the Yowie, although this is more terrestrial - very much like the American Big Foot or the Tibetan Yeti.

I'm afraid American media sometimes just grab names and persona from round the world and do with them as they will. A bad example being Tazzie (sp ?), the alleged Tasmanian Devil or Warner Bros cartoons. They do get a reasonable feel for the shape, within the constraints of cartoon anthromorphism, but they have him brown ... and devils are clearly black, with white patches (and spectacular red ears, when the sun hits them from behind!).

Regards(les)s,

Bob Bolton

Regards,

Bob Bolton