Despite sounding like a minor European royal family from a Dynasty end of series special, the House of Dübreq was, initially at least, three blokes called Ted, Burt and Brian, who augmented their film sound dubbing and recording business (dub-req, see?) with the invention of the Stylophone in 1967, got Rolf Harris on board, and never looked back. Paul Daniels was the next celeb to lend his face to the firm, endorsing a collectible series of rhomboidally-packaged magic tricks with colour-coded difficulty ratings, which he plugged in a basic telly campaign shared with Rolf’s squeezy paint-filled art brushes. ‘All from the House of Dübreq!’ chanted the unlikely pair in unison. But these were mere diversions from their flagship product, the truly inspired Top Trumps. Sadly this wasn’t enough to keep the business afloat, and the early 1980s saw the company close, flogging the Trumps to Waddingtons. A new incarnation, however, recently rose from the ashes, helmed by Brian’s son Ben. What fresh aural mayhem they’ll unleash remains to be seen.
