Blobby Fat About to Leap Atlantic

LONDON —  Forget “Middlemarch,” “Civilization” and all those other highbrow BBC programs.

Americans are getting a taste of the stuff Britons really watch: Mr. Blobby, a fat, clumsy, pink creature resembling a giant, polka-dotted jellyfish.

For the British Broadcasting Corp., he’s been very, very profitable. Now he carries the corporation’s hopes of beating Barney the purple dinosaur in the rich U.S. children’s market.

“We’re talking tens of billions of dollars here,” Michael Gury, vice president for product marketing at BBC Lionheart Television, said Friday.

Or as Mr. Blobby would say: “Blobby! Blobby! Blobby!”