The decapitated toy

This is an unusual grave story. For a start it's not about a person - although a whole generation of kiwi kids might disagree.
It’s about beloved icons whose incredible story is so full of twists and turns it’s a little hard to believe.
Every day in the afternoon a distinctive television show’s theme began to air.
“Here's a house. Here's a door. Windows: one, two, three, four. Ready to knock. Turn the lock. It's Play School!”
Yes, we are talking about Big Ted, Little Ted, Jemima, Manu and Humpty.
For nearly all of them this ‘grave story’ ends with those beloved characters safely stored at New Zealand’s national museum Te Papa.
But for Little Ted it’s a far more dark sinister tale, full of plot twists.
Little Ted - or at least a bit of him - is at the Otago Settlers Museum. His body in fact. It’s charred and decapitated.
And there is no trace of his head.
So what hideous crime allowed this to happen?
On the final day of filming of the show in New Zealand, the crew were playing pranks. Among them was stuffing Little Ted’s head with explosives.
Before there are too many gasps of dismay - this version of Little Ted was an old, already retired one. Several were always kept on hand so that no one version got too worn out.
Predictably the head got blown off and for many years tales were told about what happened to it.
But in 2009 a phone call to a reporter came from a man who claimed he had the head. He refused to give further details and it wasn’t until years later that another investigation by another reporter tracked down a man who claimed he had the head. (There is no way of knowing if it was the same man both times).
And he got a result. This time a photo of a little bear head was sent to the reporter along with a newspaper of the day as “proof of life.”
As it happens several searches for any of the other versions of Little Ted to preserve him have come up with nothing - or at least nothing public.
So the beheaded version is apparently the only one of the original left. Where the head will end up is anyone’s guess.