Ernest Carroll (26 May 1929 – 30 March 2022) was an Australian puppeteer, entertainer, radio and television personality, comic writer, television producer and comic strip writer, most recognised for his role as the sidekick opposite Daryl Somers, as the man behind (and inside) Ossie Ostrich on Hey Hey It's Saturday, Cartoon Corner and The Daryl and Ossie Show.
Life and career
Early life
Carroll was born in
Geelong, the son of a fruit farmer.
[Wendy Tuohy. "Carroll stays behind Ossie - for the kids", The Age, 5 August 1993, p. 37.] After attending the Vincent School of Broadcasting in Melbourne, he made his radio début on
TRFM which at that time was based in Sale.
['Radio needs new voices!' The Age, 2 February 1952, p. 36.] He became well-known at Geelong radio station 3GL in the 1950s, and joined Melbourne television station GTV-9 in its first active year, 1956, as a producer for children's television. He worked on shows such as
Tarax Show both on screen and as a producer, and later wrote for
Graham Kennedy. He created the character of the "squeaky-voiced moppet" Joy-Belle
[Ross Warneke. "Hey Hey, I'm Outta Here", Age Green Guide supplement, 4 April 1995, p. 10.] and Professor Ratbaggy, which owed its origins to Denzil Howson's Professor Nitwitty from the late 1950s, and he appeared as Uncle Ernie.
[ TV Week, 26 June 1958, Victorian edition, p. 2.] He also penned the comic strip versions of Gerry Gee, Joy-Belle and Ossie Ostrich.
Career
His greatest fame was as the puppeteer and voice of "Ossie Ostrich", initially on
The Tarax Show, then on the long-running and successful variety show
Hey Hey It's Saturday with
Daryl Somers. Carroll hired Somers to work on
Cartoon Corner, and played the role of Ossie when Somers' co-host, the footballer Peter McKenna, was forced to withdraw: Carroll "decided to replace McKenna with ... one of his old puppet characters he had stashed in a suitcase."
, with Somers and Carroll as hosts, ran between 1971 and 1977, when both men left the
Nine Network for the 0-10 Network and
The Daryl and Ossie Show, an arrangement that would only last a year and which saw them return to Nine in 1979. Ossie, played by Carroll, was also Somers' sidekick on
Hey Hey from 1971 until December 1994, when Carroll retired.
He reprised his role as Ossie in 2009 with the second
Hey Hey reunion special and later returned to the show's reinstatement in 2010. Carroll and Somers created the television production company Somers Carroll Productions.
Carroll was notoriously eager to keep the illusion of Ossie separate from his role as puppeteer; for instance, he would refuse to have his picture taken with the puppet. An article about Carroll in The Age in 1993 described one episode of Hey Hey in which Nigel Kennedy told viewers "something like, 'Hey look, there's a bloke over there with his arm up the bird'", to which Carroll responded with "a rare on-air putdown ... 'Some people have no sense of fantasy!'"
Death
Carroll died on 30 March 2022, aged 92, at Racecourse Grange Aged Care in Mornington, Victoria, Australia, where he had lived with his partner of almost 50 years, Miffy Marsh.
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