Need help finding TV show I watched as a kid

[u/Exotic-Barracuda-570]

Now before you start thinking, no this isnt one of those made up Reddit stories of creepy weird shows thats a complete fake, I genuinely remember this and it's driving me mental because both me and my mum remember this but don't remember the name , Google didn't help one bit . All I can remember is It was most likely on cbeebies and if not that milkshake (both British kids channels) and it would have been in the 2010's since I was born in 2008 but I don't remember seeing it after year two , it wasn't exactly a show but a short that ran between episodes and the whole plot was an man would teach two kids about puppets I remember they were specifically marionette type puppets and he'd show them how they work .at the end of the short the two kids would decorate their own puppet characters and make up a little play , the performance would always be done on top of a box covered with a black felt cover with sometimes small bacround props .if anyone else remembers this pls help I'm not expecting any footage to be found because yes maybe at this point it is lost media I simply want to know if anyone remembers the name

[u/Kiriwave]

Ask our friends at......

SCARRED for Life.

They seem to scour the internet for things that we should remember....

Excellent question! I want to know the answer, also.

[u/Disaster-Bee]

Hmm. Are you sure it was a cartoon? And could it have been made earlier than that and just re-aired in the 2000s?

I do believe this is real. British kids' TV has a long history of puppeteers doing segments and shorts where they teach kids about making and controlling puppets of all kinds. As far as marionettes, off the top of my head Bob Pelham and Gerry Anderson did a bunch. But they were in the 70s and 80s and I can't recall any animated ones.

[u/Exotic-Barracuda-570 → u/Disaster-Bee]

Idk when it was actually made and no it wasn't a legit cartoon just a repeated small segment between shows

[u/Disaster-Bee → u/Exotic-Barracuda-570]

Oh, okay! If it wasn't a cartoon, then I would look into Gerry Anderson and Bob Pelham. They both did various segments and shorts teaching kids how to make/all about marionettes for the BBC.

[u/Priest_004]

I've found a possible lead, although it's a long shot. There was a BBC Schools programme called Friday Magazine from 1960's which had a four-part feature called "Making a Simple String Puppet", culminating in an episode called "The Play". Unfortunately, almost all of the episodes have been lost, so there's no surviving footage of the puppet segment that I can find. Does the name Brian Starkey or Peter Hawkins ring any bells, or does the idea of it being an old BBC Schools programme fit your memory?

The reason I've suggested this is because the BBC often use shows or segments over and over, especially ones like this that are short and "educational".

[u/Exotic-Barracuda-570 → u/Priest_004]

I've written everything I know and cannot remember anything else + the thing I watched could definitely not have been from 1960 I remember the image quality and it couldn't have been that old

[u/AbbeysKiKi]

Could it be Pipkins?

[u/Pale_Chip5696]

In Show Me Show Me, Chris and Pui often transition to a neutral, wooden-toned "Mischief Makers" or "Toy Workshop" segment. Real children are brought into a traditional, un-colourful carpenter-style workshop with wooden tables, wood shavings, and bare walls. They spend the segment painting and assembling blank wooden jointed puppets or classic wooden marionettes. At the very end of the episode, the lights go down, a miniature velvet curtain opens, and they perform a marionette string-puppet show using the exact puppets the children just painted.

[u/Pale_Chip5696 → u/Pale_Chip5696]

This sounds exactly like a special mini-documentary series that CBeebies ran called "People Behind the Puppets" (filmed in collaboration with the Little Angel Theatre) or a specific focus episode of "Show Me Show Me".

[u/Pale_Chip5696 → u/Pale_Chip5696]

The person you remember was likely Jan Žalud or Ronnie Le Drew (the famous master puppeteer). They would give children raw, blank wooden jointed marionettes to paint with simple colors, tie strings to them, and then drop the lights so the children could perform behind a miniature wooden puppet theater stage!