In 1956, Pentagon Films Ltd produced a Noddy Sugar Ricicles commercial featuring a puppet version of Noddy. One of the company’s co-directors, Gerry Anderson, would soon see his career transformed.

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Children’s author Roberta Leigh had written Twizzle, the tale of a toy boy who could extend his arms and legs. Anderson agreed to produce it — only to discover, to his dismay, that the series would be made using puppets. Undeterred, he and Arthur Provis formed A.P. Films (Anderson-Provis Films) and set out to produce The Adventures of Twizzle, a series of 52 fifteen-minute episodes.

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Knowing little about puppets, Anderson turned to the accomplished TV puppeteer Joy Laurey, already famed for Mr Turnip on the BBC’s Whirligig. Promoted by her agent Pearl Beresford as “the girl who pulls the strings,” Joy accepted the challenge — calling it “a wonderful opportunity… and perhaps the beginning of something big.”

With just three weeks to build the characters, Joy crafted them from papier-mâché, bringing Twizzle and his friends to life with her signature warmth and ingenuity. Together with Christine Glanville and Murray Clark of the Laurey Puppet Company, she operated the puppets for every episode from September 1957 to December 1958.

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Only the first episode is known to survive today, but Joy’s pioneering work on Twizzle helped launch Gerry Anderson’s extraordinary career in television puppetry — paving the way for classics such as Torchy the Battery Boy, Supercar, and Thunderbirds.