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Clip description
An animation shows Rocket’s journey from moon to earth and then, in studio, his arrival in a cloud of dust. Unfortunately Miss Pat (Patricia Lovell) opens Rocket, who is ‘not speaking’, to discover Mr Squiggle is not inside. Doormat arrives soon after but is not speaking either. Finally Mr Squiggle (voiced by Norman Hetherington) arrives under his own steam and Miss Pat holds his hand and helps with today’s squiggles.
Curator’s notes
Despite being made over 50 years ago, this clip still makes for surprisingly effective and enjoyable television. The opening animation of Rocket looks primitive by today’s standards and the puppet strings, which would now be rendered invisible by CGI, are in plain view throughout the clip. These limitations are overcome by the actors, whose conviction in the scenario sells it to the audience.
Norman Hetherington cleverly delineates the personality of the various puppets by modulating his voice (compare Blackboard and Mr Squiggle). Pat Lovell makes for a charming host – occasionally addressing the audience ('I wonder how Mr Squiggle’s coming?’) but mostly having to keep up a stream of commentary on her own or else playing the straight role to a variety of (somewhat high-maintenance) puppets.
Norman enjoyed the fact that as a guest at science-fiction conventions, Mr Squiggle is often recognised as ‘Australia’s first astronaut’. In an interview with Norman, he credits Margaret, Squiggle’s scriptwriter for over 40 years and a fan of science-fiction, as coming up with the idea and she agrees, ‘It seemed sensible for Squiggle to live on the moon’. She also notes that Terry Dowling (now an award-winning science fiction writer) was a resident guest on ABC television’s Mr Squiggle and Friends for eight years (from 1979–87).
Norman also credits the live nature of television in influencing Mr Squiggle’s place of residence:
Shows were recorded live in those days, which meant that events could be incorporated or commented on. Squiggle was at the beginning of the Space Age so Squiggle was able to comment and react to all these happenings. Nowadays shows can’t respond to current affairs because it’s probably been recorded months ahead of time.
Norman also remembers Mr Squiggle’s response to the televised moon landing ten years after Mr Squiggle first went to air: ‘Squiggle was rather disconcerted – he was also rather excited: he thought it was Miss Pat coming to visit. And of course they started littering the place which he disapproved of, the astronauts I mean.’
'Miss Pat’ (Patricia Lovell), also 'Pat’ of the Argonauts, helped Mr Squiggle out for 15 years from 1960 onwards. Later, Lovell became one of the most important figures in the Australian feature film industry. From the mid-1970s into the 1980s she produced Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Break of Day (1976), Summerfield (1977), Gallipoli (1981) and Monkey Grip (1982). Her contribution to the Australian film industry was recognised with an MBE in 1978, a Member of the Order of Australia in 1986, Cinema Pioneer of the Year in 2002, an AFI Longford Life Achievement Award in 2004 and the NFSA Ken G Hall Film Preservation Award in 2010.
