Roland Rat

Roland Rat Superstar
Roland Rat on TV-am, where he first rose to fame.
First appearance	1983 TV-am
Created by	David Claridge
Information
Species	Rat
Gender	Male
Occupation	Superstar
Title	Sir
Family	Iris (mother) Freddy (father) Little Reggie (brother)
Nationality	British

Iris (mother) Freddy (father)

Roland Rat is a British television puppet character. He was created, operated and voiced by David Claridge, who had previously designed and operated Mooncat a puppet in the Children's ITV television programme Get Up and Go! He worked for Jim Henson, then the second series of The Young Ones. Claridge would later operate and voice Brian the Dinosaur for BBC's Parallel 9; create and direct Happy Monsters, a preschool series for Channel 5; and shoot a CGI series Mozart's Dog for Paramount Comedy.

Roland lives beneath King's Cross railway station in The Ratcave and also in Ratcave2 under The Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles California. He has an infant brother called Little Reggie and had a relationship with a Guinea Pig called Glenis. His colleagues include dour Welsh technical whizz Errol the Hamster and over-enthusiastic self-appointed "number one ratfan" Kevin the Gerbil, who is from Leeds and loves pink buckets. Claridge actually provides voices for all the main characters: Roland Rat, Errol the Hamster, Kevin The Gerbil, Little Reggie, Fergie the Ferret and Roland's father Freddie as they often appear on screen together. Rolands car 'the Ratmobile' is a bright pink 1953 Ford Anglia.

Roland was notable for his brash and confident personality, which writer states was established by Claridge and writer Richard Curtis.

Roland Rat first appeared on Friday 1 April 1983 (Good Friday) on the ailing breakfast television network TV-am, and is 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. Roland was launched at TV-am by Children's editor Anne Wood to give kids entertainment during the Easter holidays. Initially, Roland was featured as the host of The Shedvision Show, ostensibly broadcast from a wooden shack on the roof of TV-am's studios. On the strength of this, Roland was soon given a regular slot every morning introducing cartoons for younger viewers.