CLIPPER and his shipmates hit the Big Apple today as Newton Abbot bus driver Tony Faye looks set to make his dream come true.
Three years ago he thought up the idea for the battling little ship taking on all comers on the high seas. Later he turned it into a book for children.
But his plan was always to make Clipper into a film for puppets and last week in a converted newsagents in Kingsteignton, action was finally called for the pilot episode.
'The if factor has been so big, now we're that close,' said Mr Faye during a break, as Moretonhampstead film maker Mark Twittey lined up another shot.
'We've got a good team, this is what I've been after for a long time. It takes time, and you've got to be careful,' Mr Faye said.
Proudly he showed me around the miniature sets he has constructed – the galley with its tiny croissants and clay sausages, Clipper's bridge behind which shots of Teignmouth or Torquay seafront will slot in, and a model of Kingsteignton's Dewdrop Inn.
The puppets – ever watchful – seem to have a life of their own and Mr Twittey confessed: 'By the end of the day you're talking to them as if they're real, asking them to move a little bit to the left or right.'
The beauty of filming puppets was the lack of lip-synchronisation, which meant they could go into any language, Mr Twittey said.
'We're doing all this ourselves because we believe in it, and it's going to work. What's quite nice is that we're all local, it's a real Devon thing.'
Janet Woodward, an international licensing agent, is taking Clipper's pilot to New York where the biggest licensing festival in the world is being held, and the adventures of the little ship are eagerly awaited.
If they commission 20 episodes of the 20 minute films Mr Twittey said that would be two years work – and the team would go straight into a real studio.
Ms Woodward said Clipper was 'a very, very promising project,' that had struck her as being commercial the moment she saw it. But she warned that nothing was instant or certain in 'an incredibly fickle industry.'