Many of us first met the lovable Jack Russell cross, “Harvey,” in Thinkbox’s second TV commercial from 2010:

Harvey was an instant hit. When the ad was on the air, Thinkbox.tv traffic increase by over 400%, and Harvey’s Facebook page quickly attracted its first 15,000 fans (the last post there was back in 2016 when he had amassed 51,174 fans). By the end of 2010, the ad had been viewed on YouTube more than a million times. Deservedly, the ad won a slew of awards, and brought attention to the efforts of the trainers, Gill Raddings & Sonia Hooper.

It was one of those trainers, Gill Raddings, who actually owned the dog originally found as a stray.

Harvey may have been familiar to many viewers, especially if they were fans of the British TV series, Midsommer Mysteries in which he played “Sykes,” his real name.

Sykes appeared in 29 episodes of Midsomer Murders from 2011-2016 (series 14-18). He also appeared in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,  Miss Marple, Doc Martin, The Other Boleyn Girl, Young Victoria, The Dutchess, Alexander, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Return to Cranford, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, The Wolfman, and Clash of Titans. Sykes attended fan conventions, and bank openings, and he competed in agility at Crufts under the name of Sykes of the Manor with his agility handler, Alison Pearce.

A prolific career indeed.

Sadly, Skyes died last year (2019) at the age of eighteen. He had gone deaf, but he’d had a full life that gave so many people pleasure.  We still get to see Skyes in old commercials, and the one below was one of our all time favorites. Titled, “Harvey and Harmony,” we think it could be subtitled, “the most desirable doggie dates are purebreds” because every dog Skyes (playing Harvey) “interviewed” was a purebred dog. Just saying.

Now that you’ve seen the actual ad, enjoy the making of it in the video below: