50 Years of Television in Australia Page 21

  As Molly composed himself, the friendly banter continued, with Prince Charles bringing up the fact that Molly had recently been in London. Without thinking, Molly said, ‘I saw your mum in an open carriage in London the other day,’ to which the prince replied, ‘You mean Her Majesty the Queen.’ Oops.

  No doubt Molly’s planning on sticking to much simpler rock star interviews in the future, which would be right up the alley of this die-hard music lover.

  Despite rumours that Molly is being lured across to another channel and may quit Countdown, the pop aficionado says he’s very happy on the show and is not planning to go anywhere. And that news must be a sweet melody for Countdown’s executive producer Michael Shrimpton, who sees the program staying at the top of its game well into the future.

  Johnny Farnham dazzles

  March: Five-time King of Pop Johnny Farnham’s new situation comedy is shaping as a hit, according to Seven executives who have watched the pilot episode at Crawford’s. And that must be music to the ears of Farnham, who’s in desperate need of a TV winner after the failure of his live variety show, Opportunity Knocks, last year. Farnham believes his inexperience as a compere was a significant factor in that show’s flop.

  ‘I’ve never handled interviews and I was interviewing people who had never been on television before and were very nervous. It wasn’t good,’ he explained to Scene.

  He should feel more comfortable playing a pop singer in his new show, Bobby Dazzler. Comedian Maurie Fields will appear as his father and the program is said to feature plenty of music. But Farnham, whose performances have been described as ‘most refreshing’, is not convinced that Bobby Dazzler represents the start of a career as a comedian.

  ‘I love comedy,’ Farnham says. ‘But I really love singing – I couldn’t stop singing.’

  A new look for the top floor

  February: When Seven’s Saturday night variety show lands back on air this week, expect to see a few changes. Penthouse 77 will be slicker, pacier and more sophisticated than the Penthouse Club of old, and will feature one brand new compere (Bill Collins) and one new-look nose (Mary Hardy’s).

  Having taken over from Mike Williamson, Collins has cut back on smoking and has been exercising his vocal chords in preparation for impending duets with Hardy, acknowledging he’ll need mighty vocal strength just to get a word in.

  Hardy had the nose she’s hated all her life corrected by plastic surgery in January, and is threatening to spend the entire show posed side-on to the camera.

  No natural born bitch

  March: Sydney actress Cornelia Frances is happy to see the lighter side of being typecast as a bitch. But, the Young Doctors’ star is keen to stress, those roles are nothing like her true personality.

  ‘It’s a physical thing,’ she told Scene. ‘I AM tall, I HAVE got red hair. Women with red hair are meant to be catty – and I’ve got a strong face. I could hardly play a cuddly blonde,’ she laughs.

  As the stern, tight-lipped Sister Scott, Frances receives the least fan mail of all the Young Doctors cast, but that hasn’t dampened her enthusiasm for the series.

  ‘The latest episodes are very slick,’ she says. ‘I don’t think the term “soap opera” is justified. It’s not hammy like a lot of American serials. There’s lots of variety in ours. Lots of different characters.’

  ON DEBUT

  > Blankety Blanks – game show hosted by Graham Kennedy

  > Cop Shop – crime drama series following the personnel in a suburban police station

  > The Restless Years – episodes in the lives of a group of school leavers

  > Moynihan – drama series based around a carpenters’ union boss in New Zealand

  > Pig in a Poke – series following a Melbourne doctor working in a Sydney slum area

  > Kirby’s Company – series about a family running their own building company in Balmain

  > Glenview High – drama series

  > Young Ramsay – stories of a rural vet

  > Survival with Johnny Farnham – wildlife documentary

  > Family Feud – quiz

  > All at Sea – comedy starring many of the cast of Blankety Blanks

  > Death Train – thriller

  > Beyond Reasonable Doubt – documentary series on famous legal cases

  > The Garry McDonald Show – comedy series and characterisations

  > Long Play – teenage music quiz hosted by Ronnie Burns

  > Night Moves – late night rock program with Lee Simon

  > Shoulder to Shoulder – morning women’s program with Mickie De Stoop

  > Pat’s Place – women’s morning show with former Number 96 star Pat McDonald

  > Treasure Hunt – quiz show

  > The Emigrants – British/Australian co-produced mini-series

  Bye bye to Bellbird, the block and The Box

  December: It’s been a bad year for the big soaps, with fans forced to say farewell to three favourites – Bellbird, Number 96 and The Box.

  Bellbird, a long-time ABC favourite, seemed in trouble when moved to a 6.30 pm timeslot. And not even the addition of popular names like Chuck Faulkner, Terry Donovan and Gerard Kennedy could save the show from ending with its 1697th episode.

  Bellbird debuted on 26 August 1967, and its finale sees Kate and Russell Ashwood (Anne Phelan and Ian Smith) celebrate the birth of their long-awaited son, Alexander.

  Number 96 will wind things up in its 1218th episode with Arnold Feather’s (Jeff Kevin) third wedding, this time to Vicky Gilchrist (Kay Powell). Vicky’s hoping her future will be brighter than that of Arnold’s previous two wives – the first was murdered by the infamous pantyhose strangler and the second is in jail for attempted murder.

  The Box went out with a bang – though mostly behind the scenes. Emotions ran high during the taping of the last episode, and things came to a head when John Stanton and Jill Forster clashed angrily with the producer and director over a scene that required the cast to give a tearful three cheers for one of the show’s most popular characters.

  As the argument raged, executive producer Don Battye arrived on set and told the couple that the scene would be shot, with or without them. They chose to turn their backs as the action was played out.

  Quite a story to tell

  July: Viewers will never get to know what happens at the end of Hotel Story, with production on the new Crawfords series being called off by 0-10 executives with only seven of the 27 intended episodes completed.

  Originally called Hotel, the series changed its name to avoid confusion with the serial Motel and Arthur Hailey’s book. Its action takes place in a large Melbourne hotel where a newly arrived American manager is doing his best to boost the business.

  Network executives are now embroiled in a legal tangle with Crawfords, though Hector Crawford has issued only the following poetic statement: ‘Would that my tongue could utter the words that arise in me.’

  But Terry Donovan, who played a hotel manager in the series, challenged the network to put its money where its mouth is. ‘Commercial television has never been prepared to put up the money to gain the quality they keep saying they want,’ he told TV Week.

  One of the successes of this year has been the biting sketch comedy and satire of The Naked Vicar Show. Noeline Brown, Kevin Golsby and Ross Higgins head the cast, and Higgins’ character of Ted Bullpitt has already raised talk of a possible spin-off series.

  From Ten to Nine and doing fine

  April: Same success, different channel. Mike Walsh is proving he’s made a move in the right direction. When Walsh switched from Ten to Nine, his loyal audience followed, and the expansion of The Mike Walsh Show to 61 stations across Australia, including going live in both NSW and Victoria, has earned him a whole new legion of fans.

  When Walsh notched up his fifth year as king of daytime television and his 1000th episode in February, he was up in direct competition with his replacement at Ten, Brian Adams. But it didn’t take long for the ratings to prove th
at Walsh would continue to reign unchallenged over the midday slot, recording his highest-ever daytime figures in the first poll of the year. Adams After Noon was dropped the very next day.

  Despite its success, the only award The Mike Walsh Show received at last week’s Logies was for Most Popular Show in NSW. And it seemed that Walsh was keen to take the credit for the win, rushing to beat Ten’s general manager Ian Kennon to the stage to accept the award in the absence of producer David Price.

  ‘It’s the same as The Don Lane Show,’ he told Scene. ‘Peter Faiman, Don’s producer, accepted the award for that show – not someone from the channel. It was an award given to the production team.’

  Kennon agrees it was an embarrassing moment, but says he doesn’t feel too put out. ‘If Mike wants the Logie that badly, he can keep it,’ he said.

  VFL’s big day goes live

  October: The VFL broke with tradition this Grand Final day by allowing Channel 7 to produce a live telecast of the game between Collingwood and North Melbourne. The telecast drew huge ratings, and to make things even better for the network, the game was a draw, meaning a replay the following week – and a second live telecast!

  Channel 7 has already said it would love to provide live coverage of every VFL Grand Final.

  MEMORIES

  > John Waters and Gerard Kennedy star in the one-hour special, The Trial of Ned Kelly.

  > YTT host Johnny Young is ordered by Channel 0 boss Sir Reg Ansett to lose some weight.

  > The new Bandstand, with host Daryl Somers, lacks the staying power of the original and is axed.

  > Cricket becomes big business and entices a whole new audience with the advent of Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket.

  > The Logie Awards is one of the biggest commercial telecasts ever seen in Australia, going out via at least 32 regional stations.

  > The Aunty Jack team’s new project, The Off Show, includes the worst in bad taste and is cancelled just prior to going to air. The ABC wipes the tapes.

  > The multi-million-dollar US miniseries Roots screens on 0-10 and achieves the highest ratings of the decade.

  > The Sullivans’ cast storms off set due to a dispute over alleged script deterioration and the director’s refusal to allow cast to alter their lines.

  > The Seven Network buys and plans to repeat five of the ABC’s top shows, including Rush and Power Without Glory.

  > Gerry Gee, the original TV wonder doll, turns 21.

  > Eighteen-year-old Sigrid Thornton appears in The Sullivans for six weeks, playing Terry’s girlfriend Buffy.

  > Singer John Paul Young is caught out miming to his new single, ‘I Wanna Do It With You’, when the tape started running slow on The Ernie Sigley Show.

  > Ken Snodgrass, who played Jack, the Channel 12 watchman, in The Box, decides to cash in on his TV fame by opening an electrical appliance store named Jack in the Box.

  > Gold Logie: Don Lane/Jeanne Little

  > Best New Talent: Mark Holden

  MUSIC SHOWS

  For many Australians, the most popular music shows of their era are emblematic of their youth. They recall times when flares were acceptable, big hair was desirable and wiggling your hips in a certain way could get the morality custodians of the day very hot under the collar indeed.

  Do yourself a favour

  Strike up the band, gather the screaming teenagers and fire up the smoke machine! Music has been injecting television with toe-tapping personalities and thigh-slapping programs from its very early days. Like a classical pianist taking to an electric keyboard, these shows cunningly negotiated the step from radio to the audiovisual realm of TV, initially fuelled by the 1950s youthful explosion of rock’n’roll, and later the rise of the music video.

  Australia’s first rock’n’roll show, Your Hit Parade, appeared soon after TV’s launch in 1956, and presented the top eight tunes of the week through mime and dance (no, seriously!). Hit Parader’s Don Bennetts and John D’Arcy later fronted The Cool Cats Show with former Miss Australia June Finlayson, while Teenage Mailbag allowed Ernie Sigley, Heather Horwood and Gaynor Bunning to sing teenage requests.

  Ironically it was the ‘conservative’ ABC that was spicing things up with the raucous, racy and raw Six O’Clock Rock. Debuting in 1959 with singer Ricki Merriman presenting a mix of rock and jazz, the show soon became all about the ‘Wild One’, Johnny O’Keefe, his frenetic, wilful gyrations and downright rock’n’roll. Filmed in front of a live teenybopper audience, Six O’Clock Rock had to face the music when Dame Enid Lyons complained in parliament about the show, worried it was destroying the moral fibre of Australia’s youth. But the old adage, ‘any publicity is good publicity’, rang true, and the show’s ratings rose as a result. ‘JO’K’ then took his energy to the commercial networks, with the Johnny O’Keefe Show and Sing, Sing, Sing both proving hugely popular.

  JO’K’s success ushered in a phenomenal string of music shows throughout the next decade. There was the Go!! Show, hosted by Ian Turpie and then Johnny Young, Kommotion, Uptight, Billy Thorpe’s It’s All Happening, Bobby and Laurie’s Dig We Must and the Happening ’70–’72, all of which turned the likes of Ian Turpie, Normie Rowe, Denise Drysdale, Ross D. Wylie and Ian Meldrum into household names. Another ABC program, GTK (Getting to Know), took early steps towards the video age by producing ad hoc film clips for artists at a time when they were far from a priority for record companies.

  But the most successful music show throughout this period was the cleanest of clean-cut alternatives. Bandstand harnessed the threat of rock’n’roll and turned it into family-friendly viewing. From 1958 to 1972, Brian Henderson introduced a winning combination of overseas guests and local regulars, like Olivia Newton-John, Col Joye and the Joy Boys, the Allen brothers (Peter and Chris) and a young group called the Bee Gees.

  When Countdown arrived in 1974, it ushered in the music video era, complete with heinous fashion crimes and the world’s biggest names in pop music. Though terminally uncool and prone to rambling monologues – if a point was worth making, once was never enough – host Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum turned Countdown (and in the process, himself) into a cultural institution. Across the country, teenagers rushed to be home by six on Sundays, electricity usage peaked when the show went to air and artists like Skyhooks, John Paul Young and AC/DC were fast-tracked to fame.

  Countdown’s fans gave the show extraordinary power, allowing it to demand first dibs on new clips and implement a temporary embargo on rival shows playing them, with one important result: television usurped radio as the medium that broke new music. But the show was down for the count in 1987, when budgetary restraints meant it couldn’t afford to keep at the forefront of rapidly developing video technologies. 1989’s Countdown Revolution lacked harmony, rhythm and, critically, street cred.

  There were competitors, of course, such as the Saturday morning Sounds and the late-night Nightmoves, but nothing quite matched Countdown.

  Despite being slicker and shinier, more recent music video shows like MTV, Video Hits, Take 40 TV and Pepsi Live have failed to ignite the same mass excitement as their era-defining forebears. Still, pop music videos drench our screens at weekends, and with rage continuing its unbeaten late-night run on the ABC, the future of music on Australian TV seems solid, albeit without the same chaotic, frenzy-inducing charm it once had.

  Five of Australia’s best music videos …

  > AC/DC, ‘It’s a Long Way to the Top’ (1975) – Made especially by the Countdown crew, this became so iconic that the Melbourne lane in which it was shot was later renamed AC/DC Lane.

  > Men at Work, ‘Down Under’ (1981) – This theatrical, irreverent, Monkees-esque clip helped propel the group into the US during the formative days of MTV.

  > INXS, ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ (1987) – A moody, evocative clip featuring seamless transitions, shot in Prague before the fall of the Iron Curtain. One of the many memorable INXS clips directed by Richard Lowenstein.

  > Nick Cave, ‘Into My Arm
s’ (1997) – A very arthouse aesthetic permeates this montage of black and white portraits of people crying, with a moving final image of a hand entering the screen to comfort one of them.

  > The Avalanches, ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’ (2001) – Shimmering curtains open to reveal a hilariously surreal nightmare of chattering false teeth, a drumming granny, a chorus of ghosts, a skeleton on the decks and a singing turtle with the head of a man. Freud would’ve had a field day!

  1978

  Stepped away from your set this year? Don’t worry; you could have taped the whole thing to watch later. And here’s what you might have missed: cops showing their softer side, record-breaking and ground-breaking sports shows, getting to know some restless teenagers and saying goodbye to Kennedy … again.

  Copping it sweet

  November: A show thought by many to be merely filler is popping the champagne corks after having shot its hundredth episode and snared its first Logie.

  When Cop Shop debuted in November last year, it was a couple of hours of hastily slapped together television that Seven rushed on air to make up their local drama content quota for the year. As both cast and crew worked long days to try and maintain an output of two hours per week, their performances suffered and critics were quick to write off Cop Shop as another drama flop. But once production was slowed down, and the show’s scriptwriters and actors were given the chance to more fully develop the characters, audiences started to tune in to the life and times of Riverside Police Station.

  Based on positive unofficial ratings surveys, Seven gave the green light for a further 14 programs in February, and their faith was rewarded when Cop Shop picked up the Logie for Best New Drama in March.