The company was founded by two Czech refugees from the 1968 invasion of Prague, Susan Kodicek and Rosta Cerny, along with producer Maggie Clarke. Kodicek and Cerny had worked together in the theatre for a number of years as the "Black Theatre Group of Prague" (as distinct from the better known "Black Light Theatre of Prague"), performing puppet-based Variety acts with Mike Yarwood and Paul Daniels, and two full-length shows, "Plop" and "Big Me and the Wilting Witch" for Greenwich Theatre. They moved into television when the BBC gave them a regular slot on the children's show "Vision On". They moved to Granada TV for the series "Daisy, Daisy" where they performed black theatre segments and the in-show puppets Wriggle and Splodge, and eventually pitched a new idea for a further series "Once Upon a Time", which featured a short black-theatre puppetry sequence accompanying a story with a similar theme. The show ran for several years, first with presenter Peter Davison, later with singer Mark Wynter; it transmuted into "Sounds like a Story". They also contributed characters named Mr and Mrs Macaroni (notable for speaking a language consisting entirely of the names of Russian composers) to "Our Backyard".