'Puppets have been Peter Scriven's life since he was fourteen. He has lifted puppetry in Australia from a Punch and Judy type of entertainment to a national touring company of which any country would be proud. In the years since 1956 Peter Scriven's stage productions of the original Tintookies, Little Fella Bindi and The Magic Pudding, as well as his work in the ABC's popular television series Sebastian the Fox, built up a children's audience numbering countless thousands in all states.' (The Tintookies and Little Fella Bindi)
In 1965 Scriven formed the Marionette Theatre of Australia under the auspices of the Elizabethan Theatre Trust. The theatre produced innovative large-scale puppet shows with overtly Australian content for children for over 20 years. Scriven designed the original Tintookies in the mid-1950s, and various other characters were developed by Scriven and his colleagues in the Marionette Theatre over the following decade.
