Like so many Aussies, we grew up watching Mr Squiggle on TV in the afternoon. Let’s face it, having aired for 40 years, starting in 1959, not many of us missed it.
Who is Mr Squiggle? He is a puppet that has a pencil for a nose.
Why am I telling you all this? Well, last year the National Gallery in Canberra acquired the entire collection of memorabilia of Norman Hetherington, the creator of Mr Squiggle. They had a mini exhibition at that time and we popped in to have a look, as part of a few days away.
Now they have a full exhibition of Mr Squiggle and Friends, so of course we had to go again. We found it fascinating, as it was so much more than Mr Squiggle.
It was the life of Norman Hetherington, who contributed much more than Mr Squiggle.
He dropped out of school as a teenager and attended East Sydney Tech to learn about art and cartooning. While still studying, he worked as a graphic artist on ads for various papers and magazines.
World War Two came along and he enlisted in the army. His talents were quickly identified and he joined the entertainment unit, where he was involved in all sorts of things.
One was doing “Lightning Sketches”, which were the precursors to the Squiggles that made him famous. It is a bit hard to see, but if you zoom in you can get the gist. While on service, he also made watercolour paintings of what was going on around him.
After the war, he worked as a cartoonist, a job he continued until a few years after the creation of Mr Squiggle.
He made his first puppet in 1949, using instructions in a magazine that his father gave him. He added several more puppets, created often from recycled materials and did shows at shopping centres and various other places.
His puppets were even featured in the first TV show in 1956.
It was shortly after that Mr Squiggle came into being.
Mr Squiggle lives at 93 Crater Crescent, The Moon.
There was only ever the one Mr Squiggle puppet, with a few touch ups over the years, which is rather amazing.
Each afternoon he travels to our TV screen in “Rocket”. This is the original version.
In 1975 it was upgraded to a more durable version. Mr Squiggle fits inside, with his nose sticking out the hole at the front and his hat sticking out the top. The front folds down for him to step in and out.
The host waits for his arrival each day with his friend “Bill Steam Shovel”, who likes riddles.
Once he has arrived and climbed out of Rocket, the host produces a “Squiggle” that has been submitted by a viewer and is placed on “Blackboard”. Now Blackboard is an impatient fellow who inevitably says “Hurry up, hurry up” in a very deep voice. One of his eyes opens and closes. Apparently, Norman ran out of time to make the second one work, but that has added to his character.
Mr Squiggle then, using his pencil nose, adds to the squiggle to create a drawing of something identifiable and often quirky, and also often upside down.
This is an actual squiggle and they had the video running of when he created it. The reason that many of the squiggles were upside down was that Norman was working from above.
The host changed over the lifetime of the show, with Miss Pat and Miss Jane being the ones we remember. In the later years it was Rebecca, who was the creator’s daughter. Norman’s wife Margaret was also involved by writing the scripts. A real family affair.
In later years another character was added, “Gus the Snail”, but we aren’t familiar with him as his arrival was after we grew out of watching.
Norman worked all the puppets and voiced all the characters, from Mr Squiggle’s quiet gentle voice, to the deep voices of the other characters.
There was an interactive section of the display where you could do a drawing from a squiggle on a screen and it would display of a wall.
Of course we had to have a go and I chose a very simple one to start with.
Then I had another go, also simple. I forgot to take a photo of the starting point, but I’m sure you can work it out.
There were some really clever artworks showing on the screen that some people had made from the squiggles. Not this little black duck.
I’ll now just give you an overview of some of the other very clever puppets that were on display.
Apparently, there were about 100. He created about 500, which are all still in existence.
It was a fantastic exhibition to visit and was so much more than we had expected.
Of course Mick had to have his photo with Blackboard, as he is known to quite regularly utter “Hurry up, hurry up” in a blackboard voice, when he is becoming inpatient.
We are really pleased we made the effort to go down to have a look.
If you are interested, here are a couple of links to see what all the fuss is about. The black and white version is closer to what we remember.
6 comments:
Mr Squiggle was very clever! Our kids watched when Miss Jane was with the program.
How wonderful to revisit childhood memories. Thank you for telling the story for the non Aussie readers.
I loved reading about Mr. squiggle. This was a fantastic show.
Thanks for taking us along to visit Mr Squiggle and friends.
Such a talented man.
Ahhh! Memories.
Loved it digitizing services for embroidery
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