First puppet TV star

Muffin the Mule made his TV debut in For the Children (BBC, UK) on 20 October 1946, and continued to appear until 1955. The first puppet to headline its own show, the mischievous marionette from Muffinham danced on the top of a grand piano played by Annette Mills.

The original puppet was made by Fred Tickner in 1933 for the Hogarth Puppets of Jan Bussell and his wife Ann Hogarth to perform in a circus act with a marionette clown and was chosen by Annette Mills for her TV show. She gave it the name “Muffin the Mule”. Ann Hogarth manipulated Muffin while Jan Bussell manipulated the other figures. Puppets had appeared on various children’s TV shows prior to Muffin the Mule – as early as 14 May 1930, when the London Marionette Theatre appeared on a test screening within a year of the BBC’s first experimental broadcasts – but Muffin was the first puppet to headline its own TV show.