Rod Hull - Legacy

Legacy

Prior to Hull's death, Lee and Herring had planned to revive their "false Rod Hull" character for their contemporary series, This Morning with Richard Not Judy, but although they filmed several sketches–in which the character would die after performing a pointless stunt–the footage was never used. Instead, the final episode of the second and final series of This Morning with Richard Not Judy concluded with a post-credits sketch featuring Kevin Eldon's Rod Hull character, fading out to a simple dedication reading "This series is dedicated to Rod Hull."

Hull was the subject of a song by the Merseyside group Half Man Half Biscuit. Hull and Emu were also the subject of the song "No One Knew The Real Emu" by The Toy Dolls.

Upon Hull's death, Michael Parkinson reminisced that he had found him to be "a very charming, intelligent and sensitive man–quite unlike the Emu." He observed that the puppet "was the dark side of Rod's personality, and very funny, provided it was not on top of you."

His son Toby brought Emu out of retirement for the first time since his father's death during the 2003 pantomime season, appearing in Cinderella at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. Toby Hull and Emu now appear in their own series on CITV.