Early life Carroll was born in
Geelong, the son of a fruit farmer. After attending the Vincent School of Broadcasting in Melbourne, he made his radio début on
3TR which at that time was based in
Sale. He became well-known at Geelong radio station
3GL in the 1950s, and joined Melbourne television station
GTV-9 in its first active year, 1956, as a producer for children's television. He worked on shows such as
The Tarax Show both on screen and as a producer, and later wrote for
Graham Kennedy. He created the character of the "squeaky-voiced moppet" Joy-Belle and Professor Ratbaggy, which owed its origins to Denzil Howson's Professor Nitwitty from the late 1950s, and he appeared as Uncle Ernie. He also penned the comic strip versions of Gerry Gee, Joy-Belle and Ossie Ostrich. Carroll was notoriously eager to keep the illusion of Ossie separate from his role as puppeteer; for instance, he would refuse to have his picture taken with the puppet. An article about Carroll in
The Age in 1993 described one episode of
Hey Hey in which
Nigel Kennedy told viewers "something like, 'Hey look, there's a bloke over there with his arm up the bird'", to which Carroll responded with "a rare on-air putdown ... 'Some people have no sense of fantasy!'" ==Death==