Goodbye OSSIE OSTRICH

The man behind the most loved puppet in Australia takes his final bow aged 92

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ERNIE CARROLL 1929 - 2022

Ernie Carroll was an accomplished TV producer, comic writer and cartoonist, but it was a fluffy pink puppet with loads of attitude that won him millions of devoted fans and turned him into a TV legend.

He was the man and the voice behind Ossie Ostrich, the cheeky bird that helped make Hey Hey It's Saturday into one of Australia's longest running and best loved variety shows - and turned Daryl Somers into a household name.

“Ernie was a pioneer of television, starting back in the '50s, coming from a radio background to GTV-9 when television was in its infancy,” Daryl said in a tribute to Ernie, or “Ern” as he lovingly called him, after his death last week.