He was 10 inches tall, with blond hair, bright blue eyes, oversized ears like Mickey Mouse and the rosy cheeks of a child who had played too long in the snow. His name, Topo Gigio, was Italian for Louie Mouse, and during his dozens of appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in the 1960s and early ’70s he seemed, indeed, to be a cartoon mouse sprung to life, touched with Blue Fairy magic like Pinocchio.
In recurring sketches with Sullivan, he scampered on two legs, wiggled his ears, rolled his eyes, poked fun at the variety show host and pulled up the covers on his tiny bed. When Sullivan once greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, he cartwheeled into a handstand and kicked his legs with delight — astounding millions of viewers who tried in vain to spot any strings or wires controlling his movements.
“The first thing everyone wants to know is how does Topo Gigio work,” Sullivan told Popular Science in 1967. “Even after all the times I’ve worked with that darn little mouse,” he added, “I sometimes forget he isn’t real.”
The bubbly, childlike mouse was part puppet, part marionette, created by Italian puppeteer Maria Perego, who was awarded a patent for her design and operated Topo with the help of one or two other performers, plus a voice actor. She was 95, and working on a new Topo Gigio series for Italian television, when she died Nov. 7.
