Agro, the wise-crackin', never-subtle, always-hilarious "talking bathmat", has a new home in Canberra.
The famous puppet has been donated to the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra by Maree Dunn, the widow of entertainer Jamie Dunn, who was the heart, soul and humour of Agro for 44 years.
The much-loved Dunn operated Agro from 1982 until his death in March this year, at the age of 76.
Mrs Dunn, who travelled from their home in Queensland to Canberra, said it was emotional to hand over Agro, the original puppet used by Jamie for more than four decades. But she knew he was in good hands.
"We did speak to a couple of other museums but when we spoke to the staff here, they were very warm. It's very hard to let him go, I feel like I'm letting a part of Jamie go," she said, through tears.
"The staff here [at the National Film and Sound Archive] were just so lovely and assured us this would be his new home."
Agro was originally made in 1981 to appear on the dating show Perfect Match.
But he found his people on Agro's Cartoon Connection, a children's program which ran on the Seven Network from 1990 to 1997, winning seven Logies along the way.
Mrs Dunn said Agro almost became almost too popular.
"Agro used to always say on TV that he loved to eat flies and gravel," Mrs Dunn said.
"Jamie had to go down to Australia Post in Brisbane and record a piece saying, 'Kids, please stop sending the gravel through the mail'. Because when the letters were going through the sorting machine, the gravel was going everywhere."
Always cheeky, Agro loved torturing his innocent Cartoon Connection co-hosts Anne-Maree Biggar and Terasa Livingstone, with innuendos that went over the heads of the kids watching and landed straight with their parents.
Peter Clay, Dunn's good friend and producer, said Dunn and Agro were just as popular when the duo made the move to commercial radio.
"Agro just kept getting bigger and he got a bigger following, moving from TV to radio," Mr Clay said.
"But that's also just Jamie. Like, Jamie didn't always have Agro on his arm when he was doing radio but Jamie would turn up to the studio and he could go into Agro and do an hour of Agro character voice for whatever they were doing on air. Agro is Jamie. Jamie's personality came out in Agro."
National Film and Sound Archive senior curator Tenille Hands said Agro would get the best of care and attention, as would some other donated items such as Agro's costumes.
"Our conservators and our exhibitions team are going to work to keep Agro front and centre of our exhibitions spaces," Ms Hands said.
"It's such a privilege to have Agro join our collections. He's so integral to both our television and radio exhibitions.
"Our conservators haven't done their assessment yet but they will take their time with him.
"It was also important for us to share with Maree that this would be Agro's home and we will make sure he will live on for generations."
One of the people visiting the archive on Wednesday happened to be Tony Wood aka Victor the Viking, who bumped into the official handover.
"I've got chills," Mr Wood said, at being so close to Agro.
And Agro's legacy continues on in other ways. A new generation of fans are discovering his humour through old videos uploaded to YouTube.
Peter Clay said Jamie Dunn was masterful in bringing Agro to life.
"It was interesting, when Jamie had Agro on, you would start speaking to the puppet. You would actually start directing all our conversations to the puppet," Mr Clay said.
Mrs Dunn said people were still asking for a video message from Agro even weeks before Mr Dunn's death.
"He would do that just for anyone who wanted it," she said.
Mr Clay said, ultimately, Mr Dunn and Agro were special to Australians.
"There were so many people where Jamie was a big part of their lives. People got to know Jamie as much as they did Agro," he said.
