[7] The couple's children are Stephen (b.1959), an academic philosopher,[8][9][10] and Rebecca (b.1962), a television presenter [11] who also hosted Mr Squiggle & Friends from 1989 until 1999.

The letters were now rotated sideways, and the signature was written vertically running down the page from the top-left to the bottom-right (see left); and was read with one's head tilted to the right.

Many of those who were not aware of this imagined he was signing his work with (non-rotated) imitations of a number of Chinese characters, traditionally written vertically, that needed to be read with one's head tilted to the left.

[20] His interest in marionettes began in 1935 when his father, who was the head carpenter for a major shipping line, gave him a copy of an American magazine called Popular Science Monthly, which contained instructions for making a puppet out of used bicycle inner tubes.

Even in these first shows, critics were remarking on the "wit, whimsy, and lively inventiveness" of his performance with his marionettes, and were very impressed with the skill and craftsmanship with which his puppets had been created.

The Guild usually met then in the Library and Crafts Movement's centre in Rochford Street, Erskineville, and in 1953 Norman impressed members with excellent marionettes of a contortionist and a dissecting skeleton.

In 1954 he did a marionette production of “The Magic Tinderbox” in which he made use of a technique used in a nineteenth century trick puppet, “The Grand Turk”, to transform the King; his legs became frogs, his arms owls and his body became a fat purple pig.

The famous English glove-puppeteer and author, Walter Wilkinson (1888-1970) was guest at a performance in the puppet theatre at the Movement's centre at Bradfield Park, now East Lindfield.

Hetherington also went on to be President of UNIMA Australia (Union Internationale de la Marionnette, of the International Puppetry Association) for many years.

He continued to develop and perform puppet shows for holiday performances in theatres and department stores such as Anthony Hordern & Sons, David Jones, Farmer's, Grace Bros and Myer throughout the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's including shows such as such as "Enchanted Scarecrow", "The Magic Tinderbox", "The Moon for Supper" and "Nicky's Christmas Snowman".

The old-fashioned world of puppets has come back to store windows in the city with the appear- ance of A Christmas Carol a Myer in George Street.

Since the images were drawn upside down, Hetherington would lie above the set in the rafters above looking down at the drawing whilst operating the marionette.

Preliminary studies had convinced the Foundation that "dental health literature of a hand-out nature was virtually useless unless it was used to supplement information or knowledge already passed on to the recipient by a dentist or some other authoritative person".

[55] Moreover, it was soon found that the presence of Dental Health Educators in primary schools, instructing children up to 12 years in such things as diet, oral hygiene and plaque control, was not as effective as anticipated.

In 1967, Hetherington was consulted by the Foundation; and, with the initial notion of strongly augmenting the work of the Dental Health Educators, he was responsible for establishing the "Smiley's Good Teeth Puppet Theatre", starring a new puppet, Smiley ("a little boy who gets toothache because he has not looked after his teeth properly"),[56] that delivered performances based on a script that had been produced in collaboration with the Foundation, that featured all of its desired preventive dentistry messages.

The first performance—which, it had been decided by that time, would run "in parallel with" (rather than "as part of") the dental health educator programme—was in February 1968, with the specific target of the younger, primary school children.

[60] In 1970, as part of a weekend workshop conducted by the Australian Dental Association and the Dental Health Education and Research Foundation at Sydney University, Hetherington demonstrated his work to the assembled dentists, by allowing them to observe him deliver an entire performance to a group of children from Newtown North Primary School.

[61] Smiley's Good Teeth Puppet Theatre operated from 1968 to 1985,[62] and, although it began in suburban Sydney, it was making trips into the country by late 1969.

Given his wide range of appropriate skills and experience, Hetherington was invited to work with a group of undergraduate students (ranging from second to fourth year) from the (then) Department of Indonesian and Malayan Studies at the University of Sydney, over the entire three-term year of 1980, in the task of preparing them for a performance of "Irawan Rabi", or "Irwan's Wedding", as it had been adapted for a western audience by James R. Brandon, in the manner of the traditional Javanese puppet theatre (or wayang kulit).

He received a standing ovation at the presentation where many fellow cartoonists acknowledged that they were encouraged to pick up a pencil by virtue of being able to watch Mr. Squiggle's antics on television each week.

[77] In April 2024, the National Museum of Australia announced that it had acquired a collection of Norman Hetherington's puppets, scripts, artworks, props, graphics, merchandise, and fans' "squiggles", with the intention of eventually putting them on display.