When my movie Wanted premiered in the UK this summer, I invited Glen Michael as my guest of honour. Without Glen, I may never have set off on the path that led to writing the film, which starred Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman. His television show, Cartoon Cavalcade, was my introduction to superheroes and Marvel comics. I first met Spider-Man during one episode and, encouraged by my older brothers, started snapping up the books and drawing my own comic strips.

Glen was the catalyst who linked Coatbridge and Gotham City. He brought these guys into my living room every Sunday, and it’s no exaggeration to say that if he hadn’t taken what he thought was a short-term television gig back in the 1960s, I absolutely wouldn’t be in Hollywood now.

Everyone’s face breaks into a smile when I mention that I wrote the introduction to his autobiography — especially Scots I meet in Los Angeles. James McAvoy said Cavalcade was the one time on television where you heard a Scottish accent and an American accent on the same show every week. Glen taught us to broaden our horizons.

He was like a member of the family for generations of Scottish children, our third parent on Sunday afternoons, sandwiched between Farming Outlook and Arthur Montford. The moment you heard those familiar chords of the theme tune, you knew it was time to drop your Chopper and your Rubik’s Cube — to stop playing and start watching.

I’ve tried to explain the significance of this show to my 10-year-old daughter, but in an age of countless channels repeating non-stop cartoons, 50 minutes a week sounds a little disappointing. But context is everything, and when animated shorts were used only to fill five-minute gaps in schedules, Cartoon Cavalcade was cathode-ray heaven. The streets were cleared for Bugs and Daffy.

Glen may have been an institution in central Scotland, but he was born and raised in the south of England. His own childhood was disrupted by his family having to move constantly in search of work. He left home aged 17 in 1943, heading for London with £14 in his pocket and hopes of a career in show business. After entertaining the troops through the war, he forged a career in variety and in Ealing films. He appears in The Blue Lamp, skinny and wide-eyed, with Dirk Bogarde and Jack Warner.

A theatrical agent hired him as a “feed” for the comic Jack Milroy at the Victory theatre in Paisley in the 1950s. It was an old variety role that involved setting up gags for the main comedian — being funny without stealing his thunder. That’s how he came to Scotland for the first time. Glen spent 13 years as Milroy’s feed, and followed him and Rikki Fulton from the stage to television in shows like Francie and Josie.

In those days, fame didn’t automatically mean wealth and security. Glen lived in a caravan with his wife and two small children for several years, touring with it to every theatre they played. When Rikki Fulton found out, he was horrified and insisted on standing guarantor so Glen could buy a house in Glasgow’s west end.

When the partnership with Milroy ended, STV asked him to audition as the presenter of a new children’s television show. He was given no guidance for the screen test so attempted to memorise his kids’ story book, Sam the Pig. He was amazed to get the job after, he says, fluffing his lines.

It wasn’t, in fact, a story-book sort of show. Glen was told that STV had some cartoons “lying around” and the show might only last for five weeks in 1966 — it ended up running until 1992. The first Cavalcade shows consisted of Glen introducing Bugs Bunny and Sylvester the Cat, but it evolved into something much more. STV used bluescreen so he could step into the cartoons and introduced characters such as Paladin, the only talking lamp on television.

Various celebrities passed through Glen’s studio in their early days, including Craig Ferguson and Alan Cumming, now big stars in America. Even politicians were fans. The late George Younger, then the Tory Secretary of State for Scotland, passed through the Cavalcade studio with his entourage on the way to be interviewed live in the newsroom. When Younger spotted Glen, he insisted on being photographed with Paladin the lamp.

Posh kids watched Swap Shop on the BBC and the rest of us watched Tiswas, but Glen’s show appealed to all kids, rich and poor, boys and girls. It was a communal experience and touched three decades before Glen and his wife Beryl took the show to a new generation as they toured schools.

It was impossible to get bored, between Glen’s sketches and the characters he created. I must confess to sending in drawings for the “birthday slot” several times a year in the hope of hearing my name read aloud on STV.

Glen Michael is perhaps one of the most famous names in the Scottish entertainment industry. At his STV farewell party in 1992, the programme controller Gus (now Lord) Macdonald said it had been watched by two billion viewers since it began its run.

Yet, when we pause to think, we know very little about the man. Of course, there’s more to Glen than a single cartoon show. He's an old school entertainer trained in an era where you didn’t get famous by doing six-week stints on reality television.

So when a friend who works in publishing told me that the biography was coming out, I strong-armed my way into writing the introduction. I’ve worked with some of the most beautiful women in the world and some of the biggest-name actors. But I’ve never seen such excitement in the company of a celebrity as I saw on the faces of my friends and family when they met Glen at the premiere of Wanted. For a moment, they forgot all adult concerns. They were 10 years old again. They beamed as they lined up to have their photographs taken beside him, transported back to long, hot Sundays, soup bowls filled with scoops of ice cream and tinned mixed fruit cocktail. It’s a powerful thing to enter our living rooms in those formative years.

Mark Millar is the UK’s highest-selling comic-book writer and a consultant for Marvel Comics, New York. His work includes Ultimate X-men, Wanted and Kick Ass.

Life’s a Cavalcade by Glen Michael is out now (Birlinn £16.99)

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