“It’s simple, it’s clever, it’s complicated, and my father did it for 40 years, and it was second nature. That’s all I can tell you.”

The series’ puppet cast including Mr Squiggle’s friends Blackboard, Rocket, Bill Steamshovel, and Gus the Snail has been acquired by the National Museum along with more than 800 related objects.

Every script for every television show - including an interleaved drawing of featured squiggles - and a number of other squiggled drawings are present in the historic Norman Hetherington collection which also traces his career as an artist, cartoonist with The Bulletin, and puppet theatre performer.

Daughter Rebecca says her father had kept a vast archive going back to the first cartoon he sold to The Bulletin. “He never threw anything out,” she recalls.

As a child, she sat with her father as he worked in his studio beneath the family’s Mosman home. Following her father’s death, the studio remained intact, until the National Museum carefully packed up its contents last year.

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“To us, Squiggle was a member of the family, he was not a puppet,” she says. “Squiggle and my father were almost interchangeable. He really loved Mr Squiggle because he always wanted to be a cartoonist and in Mr Squiggle his cartoons became three-dimensional and came to life, and that really took my father’s fancy.

“My father was one of a kind. He combined unceasing artistic energy and creativity with technical ingenuity, an amazing work ethic, whimsy, kindness, humour and a wonderful imagination.”

Jensen said the museum intended to bring Mr Squiggle and his creator back to public attention because they remained such a treasured part of people’s childhood.

“The messages and ideas exemplified by Norman Hetherington and present in this amazing collection around creativity and imagination are as relevant today as they were during his lifetime,” Jensen said.

“Mr Squiggle was a wonderful mix of different elements of Norman Hetherington’s creative mind summed up in that one character. He brought his skill as an artist into the character of Mr Squiggle. By attaching a drawing implement to his nose he was essentially channeling many of his earlier ideas, his humour, and his creative energy into this unique creation.”

Mr Squiggle struck a chord for his gentleness, his daughter believes. “We are all in need of an escape from a harsh world.”

Puppetry is having something of a renaissance “as a lovely alternative to CGI and animation” and Rebecca Hetherington does not rule out a Mr Squiggle revival someday.

“People have expressed interest, and it’s still a possibility when we have the right energy within the family and the right partners. Never say never.”

Mr Squiggle and Rocket will be on show at the National Museum from April 29 with a larger exhibition featuring more of Mr Squiggle’s friends in development.

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