Professor P. Nutt, the inventor star of CHTV 3’s “Junior Magazine” receives so much mail that extra staff had to be employed to handle it.
The programme is broadcast nationally once a week and children write in answering his problems and suggesting further daffy inventions. A Māori boy in Waipukurrau wrote last week asking the professor to make a cone-picker-upper, while a Wellington girl suggested a cat scratcher.
Every letter is acknowledged. The sender is made a member of the Nutt Club and the invention idea noted. Professor Nutt has bright ideas of his own, too, but his inventions work better in theory than in practice. Most of them either explode or break down during the show.
Professor Nutt, who is played by John Harris, a sixth-generation clown, invites viewers to look through his telescope each week to see De Larno the magician and Lonsdale puppets-Edwina the ostrich, Bovina the cow and Basil the lion who is terrified by his own roar.
De. Larno is played by Burns Scandrett and the puppets are operated by Gerard Lonsdale and his wife Mary with voices provided by Davie Hindlin and Don Farr.
During each show a story illustrated by students from the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts is read by Pat Smyth.
Chris Williams, an American who studied drama at Denver University, and who thought up the idea for the show, is the producer.
Press, Volume Civ, Issue 30843, 31 August 1965, Page 38 (supplement)
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