''Mr. Squiggle'' (originally also known as ''Mr. Squiggle and Friends'') is an Australian

children's television series Children's television series (or children's television shows) are television programs designed for children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run during the early evenin ...

, and the name of the title character from that ABC show. The show was presented on television in many formats, between its inception on 1 July 1959 and 1999, from five-minute slots to a one-and-a-half-hour variety show featuring other performers, and has had several name changes, originally airing as ''Mr. Squiggle and Friends''. At its height, the program was one of the most popular children's programs in Australia and toured theatre and conventions, entertaining several generations who grew with the program. It became one of the longest-running children's programs on Australian television.

History

''Mr. Squiggle'', the central character was created by cartoonist and puppeteer

Norman Hetherington Norman Frederick Hetherington (29 May 1921 – 6 December 2010) was an Australian artist, teacher, cartoonist (known as "Heth"), puppeteer, and puppet designer. He is best remembered as the creator of one of Australia's longest running childre ...

, and the character first appeared on the ''Children's TV Club'' on ABC TV, but was spun off into his own programme which first aired on 1 July 1959. Hetherington voiced and operated all of the show's puppets, while his wife Margaret wrote the scripts. The basic premise of the show remained the same: children wrote in with their "squiggles" and Mr. Squiggle would turn them into recognisable drawings by connecting lines with his pencil nose. More often than not, the picture would be drawn upside down (Hetherington manipulated the puppet from above by viewing the drawing upside down), and then Mr. Squiggle would gleefully declare, "Upside down! Upside down!"—asking his assistant to turn the picture the right way up and reveal the completed drawing. The last episode went to air just over 40 years after the first, on 9 July 1999. The last episode was produced in 1997; however, it was not until 2001 that the contract with the ABC concluded. After the show ceased production, the entire cast of puppets from ''Mister Squiggle and Friends'' were owned by the show's creator, Norman Hetherington. They have been loaned for display at exhibitions, such as at the

National Film and Sound Archive The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national co ...

and as part of the "50 Years of TV" exhibition at the

Australian Centre for the Moving Image ACMI, formerly the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, is Australia's national museum of film, television, videogames, and art. ACMI was established in 2002 and is based at Federation Square in Melbourne, Victoria. During the 2014-15 fina ...

in 2007. Hetherington and his puppets appeared on the ABC TV series ''Collectors'' in 2010.

Characters

Mr. Squiggle Mr. Squiggle, the central character is a

marionette A marionette (; french: marionnette, ) is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a marionettist. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed ...

with a

pencil A pencil () is a writing or drawing implement with a solid pigment core in a protective casing that reduces the risk of core breakage, and keeps it from marking the user's hand. Pencils create marks by physical abrasion, leaving a tra ...

for a nose, who visits his friends from his home at 93 Crater Crescent on the Moon, flying to Earth in his pet rocket (named Rocket). In every episode he would create several pictures from "squiggles" sent in by children from around the country. Mr. Squiggle is a cheery, gentle and good-natured yet scatter-brained character who is often distracted and occasionally goes for "space-walks", leading his assistant to calm him down and get him to focus on the task of drawing. Other characters Other puppet characters that appeared in the show included: * Blackboard, the grumpy

blackboard A blackboard (also known as a chalkboard) is a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made with sticks of calcium sulphate or calcium carbonate, known, when used for this purpose, as chalk. Blackboards were originally made o ...

that Mr. Squiggle uses for an

easel An easel is an upright support used for displaying and/or fixing something resting upon it, at an angle of about 20° to the vertical. In particular, easels are traditionally used by painters to support a painting while they work on it, normally ...

, whose catchphrases are "Hurry up", "Hmmph", "Double hmmph" and "Booorrriing". * Gus the

Snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class ...

, who had a TV for a shell and later, a flower pot, often tells

knock-knock joke The knock-knock joke is a type of audience-participatory joke cycle, typically ending with a pun. Knock-knock jokes are primarily seen as children's jokes, though there are exceptions. The scenario is of a person knocking on the front door to a ...

s. * Bill the

Steam Shovel A steam shovel is a large steam-powered excavating machine designed for lifting and moving material such as rock and soil. It is the earliest type of power shovel or excavator. Steam shovels played a major role in public works in the 19th a ...

, who likes to tell corny jokes (often in the form of

riddle A riddle is a statement, question or phrase having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. Riddles are of two types: ''enigmas'', which are problems generally expressed in metaphorical or allegorical language that requ ...

s) and belch steam (talcum powder) out of his "nose" when he laughs. Assistants Mr. Squiggle was helped by a human assistant in all of the show's incarnations; they included Miss Gina (Gina Curtis), Miss Pat ( Pat Lovell), Miss Jane (

Jane Fennell Jane Fennell is a former Australian TV presenter, most notably on the children's television program '' Mr. Squiggle and Friends''. She is the daughter of actor Willie Fennell and grew up in Sydney, Australia. She initially worked on ''Mr. Squiggl ...

), and later series featured Roxanne (Roxanne Kimmorley) and Rebecca (Rebecca Hetherington, Hetherington's daughter). In his first incarnation as Mr. Jolly Squiggle on the ''Children's TV Club'' his assistant was Miss Faith (

Faith Linton Faith, derived from Latin ''fides'' and Old French ''feid'', is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or In the context of religion, one can define faith as "belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion". Religious people often ...

). Guest cast Comedians

Mikey Robins Mikel Mason "Mikey" Robins (born 8 December 1961) is an Australian media personality, comedian and writer. He is best known for the satirical game show ''Good News Week'', which ran on the ABC and Network Ten between 1996 and 2000, and returned ...

and

Merrick Watts Merrick Watts (born 18 November 1973) is an Australian comedian, radio and television presenter. He is best known for performing stand-up comedy and radio works as part of the comedy duo Merrick and Rosso with Tim Ross. Career Stand up Watts ...

played one of the show's characters, Reg Linchpin, for a year from 1989 to 1990. Other notable guest performers on the show included actor

Paul Chubb Paul Dunford (14 January 1949 – 9 June 2002), professionally billed as Paul Chubb, was an Australian film, television and stage actor and scriptwriter primarily in genres of comedy and drama. Early life He was born in Arncliffe, a suburb of S ...

and magician

Timothy Hyde Timothy Hyde is an Australian-based magician, born in New Zealand. Biography Timothy was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1955. While training as a primary school teacher at Wellington Teachers College (1974–1976), he also appeared in nu ...

Commemorated

In February 2019 the

Royal Australian Mint The Royal Australian Mint is the sole producer of all of Australia's circulating coins and is a Commonwealth Government entity operating within the portfolio of the Treasury. The Mint is situated in the Australian federal capital city of Canberr ...

released a series of two dollar coins to mark the 60th anniversary of the first broadcast of the programme. The coins feature images of Squiggle himself, Gus the Snail, Bill the Steam Shovel, and Blackboard.

Footnotes

References

ABC TV programme: ''Australian Story'': 30 October 1996: "Mr. Squiggle".

* ttp://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4918899 Anon, "Wonderbox", ''The Australian Women's Weekly'', (Wednesday, 28 October 1964), p.17.
Anon, "Prime Minister gets Squiggled", ''The Herald Sun'', Thursday, 28 May 2009.

Anon, "Man behind Mr Squiggle dies", ''ABC News'', Tuesday, 7 December 2010.

Bradshaw, R.,"Norman Hetherington 1921 – 2010 (Eulogy)", ''O.P.E.N.'', No.11, (December 2010), pp.2–4.

Design and Art Australia Online Biography: Norman Hetherington.

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110227171934/http://www.schoolofpuppetry.com.au/tutorials.php/australian-puppetry-mr-squiggle Guss, Naomi, "Australian puppetry – Mr. Squiggle", ''School of Puppetry'', Monday, 6 December 2010).]
Johnson, C., "Award-winning Stuff from Mr. Squiggle", ''The Sydney Morning Herald'', (Monday, 11 June 1990), p.3.

* [https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YuBUAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jZIDAAAAIBAJ&dq=mr-squiggle%20%7C%20mr-squiggle&pg=4404%2C1470526 Miller, A., "Squiggle: an ABC survivor", ''The Age: Green Guide'', (Thursday, 5 July 1979), p.7.]
Miner, J., "Mr. Squiggle is still drawing the children", ''The Sydney Morning Herald'', (Wednesday, 11 July 1984), p.17.

Morris, J., "Squiggle's friends make a fine team", ''The Age: Green Guide'', (Thursday, 5 April 1984), p.4.

Mosman Art Gallery: Tribute to Norman Hetherington, 10 December 2010.

Musgrove, N., "Many Happy Returns to Mr. Squiggle", ''The Australian Women's Weekly'', (Wednesday, 24 July 1974), p.57.

O.P.E.N., Theme Issue: Norman Hetherington OAM, ''O.P.E.N. (Oz Puppetry Email Newsletter)'', No.11, December 2010.

Panozzo, S., "Norman Hetherington: The 2009 Stanleys: The Jim Russell Award for Outstanding Contributions to Cartooning", ''Inkspot'', No.60, (Summer 2009), pp.26–27.

* [http://newsstore.theage.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac?page=1&sy=age&kw=norman+hetherington&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=entire&so=date&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=50&rm=200&sp=adv&clsPage=1&docID=AGE0105177OJ342H4JSA Quinn, Dhana, "Five things you didn't know about . . . Mr Squiggle", "The Age", (Thursday, 17 May 2001), p.2.]
Samandar, L., Puppetmaster draws final masterpiece, ''The Daily Telegraph'', Tuesday, 7 December 2010.

Shearer, G., "Thank you Mr Squiggle for the moon", (Thursday, 9 December 2010.

Toshack, M., "Pulling the strings in a magic world", ''The Sydney Morning Herald'', (Wednesday, 24 November 1971, p.20.

Tuohy, Wendy, "Mr. Squiggle: Magic on a String", The Age Green Guide, (Thursday, 24 October 1996), p.10.

Vasek, L., "End of the line for Mr. Squiggle animator", ''The Australian'', Tuesday, 7 December 2010.

External links

* {{IMDb title, id=0285751, title=Mr. Squiggle and Friends *

National Archives of Australia The National Archives of Australia (NAA), formerly known as the Commonwealth Archives Office and Australian Archives, is an Australian Government agency that serves as the national archives of the nation. It collects, preserves and encourages ...

Find of the Month: Mr Squiggle copyright registration
February 2005.
Mr Squiggle at the National Film and Sound Archive
Australian children's television series Australian Broadcasting Corporation original programming Black-and-white Australian television shows Australian television shows featuring puppetry Television series about extraterrestrial life 1959 Australian television series debuts 1999 Australian television series endings 1960s Australian television series 1970s Australian television series 1980s Australian television series