Aussies: Mr Squiggle Has GOne To The Moon

[Australis]

Sad news today: the creator of Mr Squiggle, Norman Heatherington, has passed away.

The man who created Mr Squiggle for the ABC series of the same name has died after a long illness in Sydney.

Norman Hetherington worked initially as a cartoonist before venturing into television in the late 1950s and pursuing his interest in puppetry.

He created Mr Squiggle, the man from the Moon with a pencil for a nose, in 1959.


First intended as a temporary fill-in, his show - written by his wife Margaret and later co-hosted by his daughter Rebecca - ran on ABC TV for 40 years, ending in 1999.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/06/3086216.htm

He was always there throughout my childhood years, and even when I'd outgrown him, my siblings watched, and then my kids, and sometimes you'd be flicking through the stations and there'd he'd be, with the cranky Blackboard, and his strange little rocketship, and the whole thing was... warm, is the word I come up with

What remains of the character is his gentleness. A commodity short i the world today. Another little piece of childhood slips away.

For anyone reading outside of Australia, Mr Squiggle was a vital part of 60s/70s childhood, like Mr Rogers in the US, I suppose. A clip:
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2u74YGPQCHA[/yt]

 

[Miss Chicken]

Sad to hear this. I loved Mr Squiggle when I was a child. However Blackboard scared me and I though Bill the Steam Engine was funny (strange) and a little boring.

The puppet Mr Squiggle got stolen while on display in Hobart, a couple of years back.I am not sure if he was ever recovered. I did start a thread on it when he was stolen.

Here is the old thread about him being stolen.

 

[Captain Pike]

As with a huge number of Australians, Mr Squiggle was a huge part of my early childhood. Sad to see Mr Hetherington go.

RIP

 

[Captain_Nick]

Sad

 

[PlainSimpleJoel]

Sad. Part of my childhood gone.

 

[Orac Zen]

I can still remember the theme song as clearly as if I'd last heard it yesterday. I suppose to modern eyes Mr Squiggle was hokey and silly, but the show was a lot of fun.

RIP, Mr Hetherington, and thanks for the memories.

 

[RJDiogenes]

What remains of the character is his gentleness. A commodity short i the world today. Another little piece of childhood slips away.

Gentleness is not an appreciated commodity these days. RIP, Mr Squiggle.

 

[Australis]

I was pleased to see the main news bulletins covered this last night, even though Mr Squiggle was on the ABC. Which also shows the ABC has a lot more influence than the commercial networks normally let on it does.