Framed!

I had my "Magic Circle Club" photograph professionally
framed, along with Max Bartlett's autograph!

Max very kindly inscribed a little card for me, so I could include it with the amazing still from the set he gave me a few months ago. He says, "To Ian - Great to chat about the memories of the show and meet someone who enjoyed the production. It was great to meet you - Max."




Me - when I first discovered
"Magic Circle Club!"

Australia's first astronaut is 50!

"Happy 50th Birthday" to Mr Squiggle.


Mr Squiggle, the man from the moon.

He hasn't aged a day! (Sigh. Unlike moi.) He can draw with his nose. He rides a rocket to the moon every week. He's a marionette friend to talking steam shovels, snails and blackboards. I watched him on TV as a kid, even worked with him (briefly) when we were 21 and 20 respectively, and now we are both past the big 5-0.

I did the kite-making in a 1980 episode of "Mr Squiggle and Friends", entitled "Space Age Kites", directed by Virginia Lumsden. I appeared on the little TV which Gus the Snail wore for a shell, and I had to teach Miss Jane (real-life daughter of actor Willie Fennell) to make sled kites out of beautiful, shimmery, polymer film. (I was taught how to do them by my wonderful teachers college craft lecturer, Klin Sullivan, who is a long-time puppetry colleague of the Hetherington family; Klin recommended me for the gig.)

My episode was made in the January of 1980 but didn't air until the August. It was quite a fluke as to how I became involved. I had stayed in touch with Liz, a prac supervising teacher in my second year at college, and her school kept inviting me back for their end-of-term celebrations. Knowing I was finishing up at Christmas 1979, I was invited to do some volunteer work at the Marrickville kids' drop-in vacation centre - located at Tempe, in the old heritage-listed nunnery by the river. (The students were bussed over every day in a mini-bus, and they were great kids, who were so appreciative of my efforts as a then-fledgling craft teacher.) We did several all-day excursions over four weeks of the school vacation, including Taronga Park Zoo, Channel Seven TV studios and the Festival of Sydney in Hyde Park.

It was at the Festival's hands-on craft exhibit where I bumped into Klin, and she said that if I'd come back on the weekend she'd upskill me to make space-age sled kites for the "Squiggle" show. All I had to provide my own eyelet punch, and fame could be mine! When it came time to tape the episode, the ABC and Miss Jane were able to come to us at Tempe, where we had a ready made child audience - they loved me! - and then we drove to Centennial Park in the afternoon to fly the kites we made for the cameras.

Not a bad opportunity for a 21 year old graduate teacher with no experience.

You know, despite the glorious rainbow vibrancy of Mr Squiggle himself, and the amazing purple and silver sled kites, I've never seen the episode in colour! The week my episode was due to air on TV, there was a lengthy bread strike - I was working in my Dad's independent depot bread shop in Ramsgate. I had to take my portable b/w TV in, and the episode ran for the entertainment of the queue of customers who were lined up to buy their meagre rations of daily bread. Mum and Dad couldn't see the episode at all, since they were back at the Bexley store, serving their own queue of customers. There were no commercial home video machines yet, of course. I had even asked my old college to tape the episode for their archives (and me) - on U-matic video - but something went wrong with their aerial socket that day, and it taped in b/w! (Somewhere around here I have a fairly clear b/w crosstape, but it's probably on Beta. Sigh. Unless I once made a VHS copy.)

Also: a man named Terry Dowling sang a silly song about an alien in the episode - and it was a shock, years later, to meet him in Galaxy Bookshop and realise that Terry Dowling the folk singer was THE Terry Dowling, SF writer - and the husband of Kerry, a fellow ASTREX Star Trek Fan Club member! Small universe!

Happy birthday, Barbie!

An ad for Barbie dolls, featured inside the program for a stage version of the 60s Australian children's TV series, "The Magic Circle Club". Early example of hard-sell product placement?

Happy 50th, Barbie! I only just beat you to it!

Back to The Magic Circle Club

Last night I was lucky enough to see three half-hour b/w episodes of "The Magic Circle Club". I can only make guesses at the dating of them, and the order, because there were 550 episodes made (110 serialised stories, plus the live pantomime, "The Stolen Smile") over three years.

The first episode I revisited started with a close-up of the inaugural Logie Award the series won, so it was probably from the 1966 season. Claude Clumsy, Episode 1: A Smashing Time, with a "script and original material" by John-Michael Howson, had lots of physical comedy and featured a guest appearance by Mother Hubbard's youthful and accident-prone great-nephew, Claude (played by Max Bartlett).

Since I hadn't seen this episode since 1966, it was amazing just how many memories came flooding back! Sir Jasper and his wooden club, top hat and sequined, striped vest, Fee Fee Bear going shopping at the Pixie Village to buy Japanese china, Fredd Bear feasting on bananas, and puppets Cassius Cuckoo and Leonardo de Funbird giving out the full street addresses of young children who sent in riddles and limericks.

Favourite quote: when Fee Fee happens past Leonardo on his stump, he tells her his limerick instead of Nancy. As Fee Fee leaves for home, he mutters "Nice hairy girl, that."

Things I'd forgotten: Sir Jasper's sidekick Gaspar Goblin with his little gonk-like, furry creature, Oscar. So that's why my brothers and I were so determined to own a "Yukk" each from a certain gift store in Sydney's Imperial Arcade. (Product placement?) I'd also forgotten the frequent inference of violence (Sir Jasper urges that Gaspar takes Oscar with him or he'll "smash it to pieces") and teasing. Poor ol' mute Fredd cops a gentle teasing from everyone, including Nancy.



The next full episode I watched started off with the previous season's opening sequence, with that episode's cast walking in a circle around Nancy as they sang. This was King Size, Episode 3: Sir Jasper Takes Over with a "script and original material" by Max Barlett, featuring a guest appearance by elderly King Size of nearby Enchantmentland (again played by Max Bartlett).

This episode has a great duet, "Copycat", lip-synched by Mother Hubbard and Fee Fee (but not John-Michael's singing voice!), some hilarious, unscripted banter between Nancy, the bird puppets and the wall-sized IKAN computer, and another song, "Call of the Sea" by Sir Jasper, with Gaspar in a hula skirt accompanying (very badly) on ukulele, as they plot to kidnap the king. There was also the gnarled Wicked Fairy, who intends to turn King Size into a robot for expelling her from Enchantmentland.

More product placement! Sir Jasper's Hideaway, temporarily disguised as a seaside vacation guesthouse, has two summery posters advertising "Hayman Island's Carousel '65".

Favourite quote: another gem from cheeky Leonardo, after IKAN shows a film on the origin of racehorses. Leonardo asks Nancy, "You running in the Melbourne Cup?"

Things I'd forgotten: The whole IKAN computer segment. I recently saw the description of IKAN in the program I bought on eBay for "The Stolen Smile", but I'd quite forgotten Leonardo frequented anywhere other than his papier mache tree stump. IKAN stands for Instantaneous Knowledge Accumulation Network, and his computer screen functions similarly to the infamous round, square and arch windows of "Play School", and the monitor on Gus the Snail's shell in "Mr Squiggle and Friends".

There was also reference to Sebastian, a character I didn't remember at all. King Size previously suggested that he would make a good court jester for Max, who's gone off somewhere.

The episode concludes with an amazing shot, done almost in widescreen, with all the characters in silhouette, wandering through the Magic Forest, looking for the Wicked Fairy and clues as to King Size's whereabouts.



The third episode started with the same opening sequence, but this time only Fredd and a smaller bear parading in a circle around Nancy as she and her offscreen background singers vocalised. This episode, seemingly a Monday episode, was anticipated by Nancy to be a very quiet week (Ha! As if!) so she decides to read Fredd - and Sebastian! - a pirate story from the Barbary Coast. Again, the "script and original material" of this Episode 1 was by John-Michael Howson. Nancy warns the bears that the characters in her story might remind them of some familiar people. And sure enough, we have a guest appearance by nasty Simon Sneak (again played by Max Bartlett), keeper of an inn called the Cross and Bones. The Magic Cottage doubles as the inn, with a cellar in place of Mother Hubbard's cupboard.

Nancy herself is seen as Sweet Nelly, a serving wench and Fee Fee is Daphne Drudge, the cleaning woman. Fredd turns up in a Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit, as Little Lollylegs, who is seemingly addicted to contraband food: rum cakes and toffee apples! A very clean cut Colin McEwan (not a bit like snivelly Gaspar) is the very clean cut Soldier Jim. The pirate villain is Captain Crook, a character (or at least a namesake) who returns in "Adventure Island" on the ABC a few years later. Of course, the inn has its own Barbary Coast version of Cassius, who lives in the clock.


The Magic Circle Club's IKAN computer

Leonardo and IKAN feel abandoned by Nancy and so they answer three viewers' letters themselves. Strangely, three separate letters have requested information on the unlikely topic of King Alfred the Great! The handwritten letters (and full addresses) are even shown, as if to prove their authenticity.

Favourite quote: Nancy mentions that children she meets say they are scared of Gaspar Goblin and she lectures that they just laugh at Gaspar, and that no one should be frightened of someone "who makes out that he's something he's not."

Things I'd forgotten: Sebastian. I have absolutely no memory of him! (Presumably played by Gael Dixon?)

Also, the sheer versatility of Colin McEwan and Max Bartlett. As a kid I had no idea that they doubled up in so many parts. McEwan's voice was all over the show, in so many accents and personas. And Max was my favourite character, but here were three episodes, all featuring him heavily, but none were actually his "Max" character. Did I ever realise that Max was all these people? No, I don't believe I did. I'm so impressed!



How I'd love to see a company such as Umbrella Entertainment release a "Best of..." DVD set, perhaps with a cast reunion commentary track? Sadly, you'd have to be over 48 or so to even remember the show.

I hope you enjoy the cast pics and bio extracts from my old theatre program.

Squared-eyed memories

Today I had a chance to catch up some fun cartoons of my childhood: episodes of "The Herculoids", "The Impossibles" (of "Frankenstein Jr and the Impossibles") and... "Prince Planet". Although many of my US penpals say they've heard of "Prince Planet", most never saw it in their area. Black and white cartoons were pretty old hat in the US at the time. And yet, here in Australia, it was as well-known as the original "Astroboy". I even made my own (double-sided) "P" medallion - the reverse side was all P'ed out, for when Prince Planet needed to refuel.


Prince Planet, aka Bobby Prince, in glorious black and white.

Hmmmm, there's a superhero theme common to all of those, I only just realised.

As I mentioned here recently, the first TV show I remember vividly was the Magic Circle Club in 1965. I was in Year 1 at school, and my brother was in Kindergarten. The show, a precursor to "Adventure Island", was like a live musical pantomime and it played five nights a week - but very often, instead of seeing the Friday resolution episode, we had to go shopping after school with my Mum and grandmother!

Monday recess was for catching up with what had happened on the Friday, much as "Number 96" was discussed in the playground when I was at high school. (And in primary school, it was always "Batman", and how he and Robin were going to set themselves free from the arch criminals' amazing trap.)

Other very early TV memories: "The Adventures of Robin Hood" with Richard Green, and the very scary UK version of "The Invisible Man", both favourites of my Dad.

And an afternoon kids' show with Bill the Koala, a lifelike hand puppet, who climbed back up a gum tree at the end of each show, while the hostess sang, "Bill's asleep, Bill's asleep, tra la la la la..., Bill's asleep." For the life of me, I can't remember the name of that show.

So, what were your earliest TV memories? Go on, make me feel old!

Magic Circle WOW!

I promised to tell you about my recent (though expensive) success on eBay...

a 1965 program to a stage production of the "Magic Circle Club", surely my favourite Australian television show from my very early years!

This purchase arrived on Monday, by registered post, but the notification card came to my home address instead of to work, where I wanted to be able to sign for the package. I was finally able to collect it today.

Wow!



Godfrey Philipp's "Magic Circle Club" was a national children's television show, which I watched on a then-fledgling Channel TEN-10 in Sydney (from 23rd January 1965 till 1967). The channel was so new we had terrible reception. It ran for 550 thirty-minute episodes and had its roots in live pantomime and classic fairy tales. The show was the talk of the playground when I was in Year 1 and Year 2, and featured amazing song and dance production numbers and original songs by none other than John-Michael Howson.

Being a Sydney boy, I hadn't heard of this particular version of "Magic Circle Club" before: a specially written episode called "The Stolen Smile". It was performed live on stage at Melbourne's Tivoli Theatre (from December 27, 1965 for the summer school holidays). In this adventure, evil Sir Jasper Crookly and Gaspar Goblin had banished Clocko the chief clown and Spangles the trapeze artist from a circus - and had also taken away Clocko's smile. Appearing on stage with Max (Max Bartlett) and hostess Nancy Cato were Fredd Bear, Fee Fee Bear (John-Michael Howson), Mother Hubbard, Curley Dimples, Crystal Ball, Hep Cat, Montmorency James Rabbit and bird puppets, Cassius Cuckoo and Leonardo de Funbird, all played by the regular TV cast.

One of the reasons I was so determined to obtain this program was for the cast and crew names that were sure to be mentioned. Although my memory was fairly good, I had many gaps - and so do (or did) places such as Wikipedia. For example, this production was stage managed by some now well-known Aussie names: Sue Nattras, Simon Wincer and Jim McElroy. I'd also forgotten that Leonardo lived inside the IKAN (Instantaneous Knowledge Accumulation Network) computer. (In 1965? Surely a zany computer to predate the Bat-computer of TV's "Batman"!)

Here's an excerpt from the program, featuring the three characters and performers I remembered the least about:



More excerpts soon!

The ring and the Circle

Something happened this weekend that sent me reeling back in time - in a scene reminiscent, if you've ever seen the movie "Somewhere in Time", of when Christopher Reeve finds a modern-day coin in the pocket of his hired period costume he'd used to astral project himself into a bygone era, and is sent hurtling back from whence he'd come.

I was removing my signet ring to place it on the nightstand and, in the dark, I heard a SNAP!. The band on the ring had severed, and I guess I'm up for a hefty amount to get the ring re-soldered, although maybe they can also re-seat and re-polish the bloodstone that is set into it at the same time?

The ring carries lots of sentimental value, and quite a bit of quirky McLean history to it. The ring used to belong to my paternal grandmother, Jessie and she bequeathed me the ring because as a kid I'd always impressed upon her that it was my favourite. We used to love looking at the dark green stone in strong sunlight together, as then you could discern the bloodspots within it. And yet, in normal light, or at first glance, the stone appeared to be a black onyx. Many years before even making a Will, my grandmother presented the ring to me one Christmas when I was in my late teens or early 20s, as she wanted to see me enjoying it. The ring has survived my skinny early 20s (with a size-reduction band clipped inside it) and my fattest periods when I feared it would become stuck fast, which is the main reason I made a point of removing it every night.

This ring is actually not the original. Nanny's first bloodstone ring was too big for her finger, especially on cold days, and one fateful town visit she hung it on a hook in the restrooms of David Jones in the city, lest it tumble into the toilet bowl. Of course, she then went home, taking her coat but leaving the ring still on the hook. Phoning the store's "Lost and Found" department that afternoon did no good; she'd have to travel back into the CBD, in person, to make an identification. When she told the staff she was seeking the return of her bloodstone ring, they said, "We're sorry, we have no red-stoned rings at all."

"No," said Nan. "It's a green stone with red bloodspots."

"We're sorry, we don't have any green-stoned rings either."

Of course, if it was in the tray in the back room, they probably thought it was a black onyx.

When my grandmother went to Proud's to order herself an identical replacement, they had to remodel a man's signet ring to achieve the appearance of the original. Ironic that the thinness of the remodeled ring is probably what caused it to snap on me this weekend. (I've been much tubbier, so I'm not blaming the thickness of my fingers this week.)

So I guess I'll soon be off to Prouds in the CBD to get a quote on a repair job.

But, as I said, the ring snapping sent me deep into the nostalgic recesses of my TV trivia-filled mind. Visions of my grandmother, sitting in her chair knitting or crocheting - usually for "her ladies" at the Coles store in Rockdale (another complicated story) - while my two brothers and I presented our absolute best behaviour to be allowed to watch our favourite television shows in glorious black and white: "The Magic Circle Club", as mentioned here a few days ago, "The Flying Nun", "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "Please Don't Eat the Daisies", "Batman", "Disneyland", "Captain Nice" and "Mr Terrific". Ah, the 60s!


Max and Nancy with the "Magic Circle Club" cast; and a three-shot of Mother Hubbard, Fee Fee and Fredd Bear

In my case, today I resolved to search out an Internet contact for Max Bartlett, my idol and role model from the early 60s (before he was inevitably replaced by "Batman and Robin" - I mean, they had gum cards to collect!) And so I sent Mr Bartlett the fan letter I should have sent him in 1965. I'd never sent in any MCC fan mail for Nancy Cato or Liz Harris to read to Fredd Bear on the toadstool, so I thought I'd make up for it today and say, "Thanks for the memories".

Undoubtedly, Max was my favourite MCC character, and I recall the day I told my parents that "Max" was my middle name, since they hadn't given me one. As a teacher and teacher-librarian in 2007, I know only too well how influential television is on young lives. Luckily for me, I had "Magic Circle Club" to watch, but it's hard to convey to today's kids that there was ever anything better on TV of similar importance to "The Simpsons". I think of "The Magic Circle Club" often as I break up kids choking each other, Bart & Homer-style, in the playground.

As I write this, I have a sudden recollection of the episode where Max got tied up to one of the big papier-mache trees and had to be rescued. We all played MCC in the playground at school. Again, until "Batman" took precedence. You know, at Christmas, my grandmother used to take my brothers and I to visit Santa each year, in a magical grotto of papier-mache trees at Grace Bros' old Broadway store in Sydney - and we were convinced that we'd somehow found our way into the Enchanted Forest of "The Magic Circle Club" because of all those giant papier-mache trees. I could almost hear Fee Fee Bear (John-Michael Howson), and "her" high-pitched voice, screeching from within.

As a young adult, at teachers' college, I ended up spending three years (1977-79) in a building right behind the Grace Bros buildings - and was often there in GBs for lunch. One day, I actually ended up taking a wrong stairwell... and seeing a vast storage room, still filled with those papier mache trees from the early 60s!


Magic Circle Club - in colour, as we never saw it on our b/w television monitors!

Bring on the papier-mache trees! And to Max, Nancy, John-Michael - and Jessie: "Thanks for the memories".

The magic of the 60s

Yesterday and today, while avoiding housework by trawling around the Internet, I uncovered a few stray bits of uploaded data about an Australian children's television show of 1965-67: "Magic Circle Club". What was frustrating was that no one had done any cross referencing, so the Wikipedia listing was very incomplete (and is still quite vague in many places), but at least it looks less patchy tonight, now that I've gotten stuck into it.

I was in Year 1 when "The Magic Circle Club" premiered. It was probably my first favourite show, and what a thrill when it even won a Logie Award! (Of course that usually dooms the great shows and, yes, eventually "The Magic Circle Club" was deemed too expensive, and many of the production staff and performers found themselves in a new, but similar, show called "Adventure Island".

The brainchild of a dynamic group of early TV identities, including Godfrey Philipp and John-Michael Howson, it owed a lot to the pantomime genre, and featured original songs, music and dance routines, which my brother and I watched in all their blurry, flickering, monotone haze, as Channel Ten was only very new, and our grandmother's television antennae received a very untrustworthy, twitchy signal from that frequency.


Cassius, Leonardo, Fredd, Nancy and Max, c. 1965


Its characters were the denizens of the Magic Forest: the mute Fredd Bear (Tedd Dunn) and his screechy sister Fee Fee Bear (hilariously played by John-Michael Howson in a hair bow and high heels); Mother Hubbard (a bustle-wearing pantomime dame, played by Fred Tupper); the handsome Max (Max Bartlett); Curley Dimples, a young Shirley Temple analogue; Marlena DeWitch (Marion Weir); Crystal Ball (Gabrielle Hartley) and her pet, Hep Cat (Nola Finn); and villain Sir Jasper Crookly (Ernie Bourne) - definitely a precursor to Snidely Whiplash and Dick Dastardly (and a full year before Professor Fate of "The Great Race")! Sir Jasper's sidekick was the sniveling, cowardly Gaspar Goblin (Colin McEwan), who was reminiscent of movie host, Deadly Earnest.

The show was hosted by Nancy Cato, cousin of a famous author, the other Nancy Cato. A later addition to the cast was Liz (Liz Harris), who also took over as hostess when Nancy Cato suffered temporary paralysis and was confined to a wheelchair.

The 550 episodes were serialised across five days, with the Friday program wrapping up each week's storyline. (This was a great frustration to my brother and I, since on Friday afternoons, we all often had to walk to Rockdale shopping centre - from Arncliffe, two suburbs away - to do any shopping my Mum and grandmother hadn't done the day before, ie. "Message Day"). Each episode finished up with the hostess sitting on a large toadstool (or indeed, the "Magic Mushroom"), with Fredd Bear crouched beside her (usually after dusting off the stool with a handkerchief), while the pair shared viewer letters and artwork. Another regular feature included knock-knock jokes with Cassius Cuckoo and limericks with Leonardo de Funbird, who were very expressive wooden and felt puppets.

A semi-regular guest character was Aunty Vale (Bunney Brooke) - what a highlight of my time putting together my (still uncompleted) "Number 96" book: to interview Bunney Brooke and get her chatting about being Aunty Vale all those years ago!

The "Magic Circle Club" was influential upon me in so many ways. Even though I was only in Year 1 and then Year 2 at school at the time, I have a very distinct memory of the day I wrote a "Magic Circle Club" play. There were scripted roles for all of my school friends, and I had my younger brother, who was one year below me at school, and couldn't read, to play the part of the silent Fredd Bear. Through trial and error, I realised why play scripts need to have everyone's parts written on each copy.

I remember making several working cardboard and paper models of Leonardo de Funbird, with an Origami "colour-changer" for a beak. I also recall making a tiny stapled book of character drawings from the show - obviously my very first fanzine production (a collector's edition: #1 of 1 copy!). I also remember making a matching volume for "Adventure Island" when it started the next year.

If you were around in 1965 and 1966, and remember any details of Australia's "Magic Circle Club", which I've omitted here, please do let me know!