Farooq Qaiser

Farooq Qaiser (Punjabi, ; 31 October 1945 – 14 May 2021) was a Pakistani artist, newspaper columnist, TV show director, puppeteer, script writer, and voice actor.

He was known as the creator of the puppet characters Uncle Sargam and Masi Museebtay, introduced in 1976 in children's television show Kaliyan. He also received his master's degree in Mass Communication in 1999 from the University of Southern California, School for Communication and Journalism, United States.

Career Qaiser started his career in the early 1970s after graduating from the National College of Arts, Lahore, with a short documentary in the English language. In 1971, his teacher Salima Hashmi got him involved in her children's television puppet show Akkar Bakkar. His first assignment on the show was to create a local version of the Big Bird, after which he went on to create many other characters for the program. He was also a newspaper columnist at the same newspaper and wrote under the pen name Meethay Karelay. He taught for sometime at the Fatima Jinnah Women University in Rawalpindi.

He served on the board of governors at the National Institute of Folk and Traditional Heritage (Lok Virsa), in Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2015. He was a recipient of the Presidential Pride of Performance in 1993. Sitara-e-Imtiaz awarded by the President of Pakistan on March 23, 2021, for his unmatched performance and contribution towards the entertainment industry of Pakistan for over 4 decades.