Muffin the Mule

Muffin the Mule was one of the earliest BBC television shows. It was broadcast at least in 1953, near the time of Elizabeth II's coronation. It involved a human hostess speaking and singing to a puppet mule. (TV: The Idiot's Lantern)

According to one account, when Ace turned on the television in Mrs Smith's boarding house in 1963, it showed a woman with a thick posh accent playing a piano while a wooden donkey jerked up and down. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks)

The Twelfth Doctor compared Muffin the Mule not actually being inside one's television to a monster he encountered not literally being trapped within a cassette tape. (AUDIO: Dead Media)

Behind the scenes

 * In the real world, Muffin the Mule was recorded in Lime Grove Studios, Doctor Who's first studio home. (BBC DVD: The Curse of Peladon)
 * When the first issue of TV Comic was published in 1951, it featured the first page of the Muffin the Mule comic on the cover with art done by Neville Main, who would be the first artist of the magazine's Doctor Who comic.