Mr Blobby auction winner backs out of £62,000 eBay bid

31 January, 2023

Mr Blobby

The winner of an eBay auction for an original Mr Blobby costume has backed out just an hour after bidding £62,000 for the item.

The costume was originally listed on the site for £39, but the price soon increased after attracting attention online.

The seller, a former BBC employee who wished to remain anonymous, said they were not surprised when the winning bidder withdrew their offer.

“I thought it would get to a level of £100 perhaps – and so I was shocked really that it reached the level it did. I think it was one of those things that was driven by social media,” they told BBC News.

While winning an eBay auction is a commitment to buy, the auction website has no legal power to enforce a sale.

The costume was created for an international version of Noel’s House Party, the live TV show, hosted by Noel Edmonds, that shot Mr Blobby to fame in the 1990s.

However, when the international version of the show did not go ahead, the seller kept the outfit, as no one else on the production team wanted to keep it for themselves.

Decades later, the BBC employee decided to sell the costume while making space for a house move.

“Ironically, it was being sold not to make money but to make space,” said the seller.

Due to copyright laws around the character, the outfit could only be worn at home. It was also in need of some repair, including the reattachment of both arms. However, it still managed to attract 178 bids by the end of the auction.

On losing out on the money, the seller said: “I don’t think you can lose something you’ve never had,” before adding that they now intend to keep the costume a while longer, with no new auction planned.

Last year, Self Esteem spoke to NME about when she met Mr Blobby during an appearance on The Big Breakfast. Asked what the pink and yellow icon was like, she replied: “Sexy, sort of interesting, shorter than you think!

“It doesn’t get better than that, does it? That day when I met Mr Blobby… I don’t need anything else now. You know they used to put the voice on it? The vocoder? Obviously they didn’t have that, so the guy in the suit was trying not to make any noise. When I hugged him he’d just be like, ‘blobby blobby’ in a normal man’s voice. Poor guy.”

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