20 August 1960 was the official opening of NRK’s (the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s) television broadcasting operation. The following year, in June 1961, the puppets Pernille and Mr Nelson went on air in the programme Småbarnas Teater (“Children’s Theatre”). Ragne Tangen was the performer for both characters. Later, NRK’s children’s TV created its own programmes with a large variety of puppets. Sceneweb’s gallery of theatre puppets now includes information on many TV puppets from the earliest years until recent times. 

We would like to thank NRK Barne-TV (children’s television) for their help and inspiration on this work, and especially to Karoline Evensen, Christina Espedal and Stine Temte at children’s tv channel NRK Super. For the gallery, puppeteer Åsmund Huser has revived the puppets, and Elin Grimstad has photographed them. Elin Grimstad is responsible for all the images in Sceneweb’s theatre puppet gallery.

In a longer article (in Norwegian) about puppets for television in Norway, Anne M. Helgesen takes a closer look at the development of puppet theatre in NRK. You can read the article here.

The author of our historical article about the television puppets is Anne M. Helgesen, who has been involved in the Norwegian puppetry field for many years. She holds a PhD in theatre studies, with a thesis on the history of Norwegian puppetry (2023), and has published academic books, articles and biographies within the theatrical field. Her latest book is a biography of the Norwegian children’s author Anne-Cath. Vestly (Anne-Cath. Vestly. Mye mer enn mormor; 2023). Helgesen has also written several children’s books. She was the editor for the puppetry periodical Ånd i hanske (“Spirit in Glove”) from 1988 to 2007.

Anne is passionate about figure theatre, and in 2000 she established the figure theatre company Kattas Figurteater, of which she is artistic director. She is also a scriptwriter, performer and stage director in the company. 

In 2020, at the request of UNIMA Norway (www.unima.no), she established the Tønsberg Puppet Festival (Figurfestspillene i Tønsberg). The festival, organized every other year, profiles and programmes Norwegian puppet theatre.

We would like to thank Anne for her article on the television puppets, a subject that she also researches. The Theatre puppet gallery and Tønsberg Puppet festival collaborated on an exhibition of television puppets in2024.It is both important and pleasant to include more people in the work on the gallery.