50 Years of Television in Australia Page 36
May: The world of current affairs is a group of men in dark suits in shock after sackings and reshuffles across the networks.
Derryn Hinch has been sacked from Ten and Hinch cancelled after an epic 1500 episodes. At A Current Affair, meanwhile, Mike Willesee has been bumped out of the host’s chair and replaced by Ray Martin from The Midday Show, in an apparent bid to win more female viewers.
Nine has been concerned about an attack on A Current Affair’s ratings by Stan Grant’s Real Life, on Seven, with its steady diet of miracle cures, weight loss formulas and celebrities.
Ten had gone with the usual ‘dead man walking’ line that Hinch would create three or four specials next year, but instead he will move to Nine, to host The Midday Show. This led to speculation that Midday might become an Australian version of Donahue, the confrontational American talk-back show, but Hinch has rejected such talk. ‘You can’t find those sort of weirdos in Australia,’ he told the SMH.
ON DEBUT
> A Fork in the Road – journalist Pria Viswalingham looks at foreign cultures, people and places of interest
> Seven Deadly Sins – series dealing with the seven deadly sins
> Law of the Land – drama serial about a lawyer who takes a job as magistrate in the small town of Merringaree
> The Comedy Sale – short-lived sketch comedy program set in a suburban shopping mall
> Mission Top Secret – children’s drama
> Seasons – sports show > Boys from the Bush – series about two English brothers living in Melbourne
> Labor in Power – brilliant documentary dealing with Labor’s time in power.
> Secrets – espionage drama series
> This Sporting Life – Rampaging Roy Slaven and HG Nelson take their own unique look at the sporting world
> Snowy – drama series based on the Snowy Mountains hydro scheme
> Ernie and Denise – morning variety program hosted by Ernie Sigley and Denise Drysdale
> Newlyweds – sitcom following a young couple
> Blood Brothers – doco/drama exploring Aboriginal issues
> The Extraordinary – supernatural series presented by Warwick Moss
> Fish – fishing program
> Attitude – Samantha Butler hosts this magazine program for teens and young adults
> Rex Hunt’s Great Outdoors – travel show
> Invisible Enemies – documentary series featuring Dr Norman Swan
> Money – Paul Clitheroe presents financial advice and tips
> Full Frontal – sketch comedy program from the stables of Fast Forward
> Our House – home improvement and DIY program hosted by Rebecca Gilling
> Sports Tonight – late-night sports news and interviews
> Talk to the Animals – Dr Harry Cooper looks into the animal kingdom
Beautiful, shiny Paradise promises the world
High hopes are held for Paradise Beach, a lush, confident new soapie aimed at a global audience and boasting the unbeatable combination of beaches, babes, bikinis and bodies.
Described by the makers as ‘a slick, glossy Beverly Hills 90210 meets Neighbours meets Baywatch’, Paradise Beach looks set to be enjoyed by more than 50 million people worldwide, breaking all sorts of new ground for a brand new Aussie soap.
Heading the cast will be Olivia Newton-John’s husband, Matt Lattanzi, as an American photographer. Former Perfect Match hostess Tiffany Lamb is also set for a role.
It’s the story of a couple of youths, Sean and Roy, from southern Australia heading north for a holiday in Queensland. Sean’s sister, Tori, tags along for the ride to visit her penpal, Cassie. When they reach the Gold Coast, they will quickly find romance, excitement and no doubt dramatic storylines.
The first Australian soapie to be shot at Queensland’s new facility, Warner Roadshow Movie World, on the Gold Coast, Paradise Beach is being put together by a heavyweight global team including the Nine Network, Village Roadshow and New World International. It has been pre-sold to the USA and Europe, with 260 episodes on the slate.
Even before a scene has been shot, there are official lines of merchandise and Paradise Beach fashion wear in the pipeline. The only dilemma facing the young cast of largely unknown Aussie actors, such as Ingo Rademacher, John Holding, Megan Connolly and Tony Hayes, would appear to be how they are going to handle becoming international household names.
If ever there’s a sure-fire winner, this seems to be it.
Look who’s back? Yes, Norman Gunston has returned to television with another series of outrageous comedy on the Seven network. Actor Garry McDonald’s alter ego is hopefully set for another long run on air this time around.
Bugs Bunny Show hosts too hot to handle
November: Sophie Lee and Danielle Fairclough, hosts of The Bugs Bunny Show, have been accused of trying to attract a voyeuristic audience by wearing sexy clothes.
‘On walking into the TV room to see our four- and six-year-olds last Saturday, I was amazed to see the young, blonde whoever-she-is host baring most of her bust for patently obvious reasons,’ one angry viewer wrote to The Age’s Green Guide.
A week later, another wrote: ‘Can she not keep in mind the viewing audience at that time of day and dress more appropriately? I seem to recall her predecessor as host of The Bugs Bunny Show had the same problem.’
Sources within the industry suggest the move is an attempt by Nine to boost ratings by attracting adult viewers to the weeknight edition in the hope of holding them for the rest of the evening.
Can ACP do a Neighbours?
November: After a marathon run on Seven, A Country Practice has moved to the Ten Network, but TV watchers say comparisons with the last soapie to make that switch, the wildly successful Neighbours, are premature.
After 12 years, the Wandin Valley drama has appeared to be running out of legs lately, with its ratings slipping so far that it has occasionally finished fourth in its timeslot, behind even the ABC. There is also talk that Shane Porteous, a foundation cast member as Dr Terence Elliott, will not be making the move down the dial.
Having done the deal, Seven executives have been less than complimentary about Ten’s intentions. Seven’s Sydney programming manager, Glen Kinging, told the Sydney Morning Herald: ‘If they want our failed shows, they can have them. It means their aspirations are not as high as our cancellations.’
In the show’s final episode on Seven,Wandin Valley was completely gutted by fire, an ending that appears to mirror Seven’s view of the series.
MEMORIES
> Bert Newton’s morning variety program on Ten, The Bert Newton Show, becomes Good Morning Australia.
> Annette Shun Wah becomes the new presenter of the ABC’s documentary series The Big Picture.
> Judith Lucy joins the cast of The Late Show.
> Telemovie The Feds, starring Robert Taylor and Sigrid Thornton, looks at investigations by the Australian Federal Police into a prominent brain surgeon believed to be behind a drug smuggling operation.
> After barely six months, Channel 10 cancels its highly promoted revival of Jeopardy, hosted by Tony Barber.
> Garry McDonald returns to our screens with The Norman Gunston Show, but the pressure of a live weekly series results in a nervous collapse three weeks in. Mary Coustas as ‘Effie’ takes over hosting the remainder of the series.
> Jo Beth Taylor takes over as host of Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show.
> The Nine Network dumps Sex with the implication that new boss Bruce Gyngell takes personal offence to the program.
> SBS unveils a new logo.
> Pay-TV operator Australis and Channel Seven register on the ASX.
> Tasmania’s Southern Cross Network changes its name to Southern Cross Television.
> The Flying Doctors appears in a revamped format as The Royal Flying Doctor Service or R.F.D.S., featuring new locations, new characters and a more ‘realistic’ style.
> Gold Logie: Ray Martin
AUSTRALIAN TV SOLD TO THE WORLD
Just like Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee, locally produced television gives international TV audiences, from the UK to Africa, a tour of the Australian landscape, our suburbs and our tough but high-rating women’s prisons.
Show us to the world
Aussie TV shows have largely set the tone for creating Australia’s identity overseas. And what a mixed bunch we seem to be: happy families living utopian lives in suburban cul-de-sacs and eternally sunny beachside towns (Neighbours, Home and Away); potty-mouthed prison inmates crushing each other’s hands in steam presses (Prisoner); and dark family secrets exposed when twins separated at birth finally meet and fall madly in love (Sons and Daughters).
But Australia’s most successful TV export up until the late 1970s wasn’t a hard-knuckled crim or tanned, adolescent group of beachgoers. It was a fiercely intelligent kangaroo who added knot tying, letter posting and piano playing to her everyday lifesaving skills. Skippy the Bush Kangaroo is still shown in Italy, was dubbed into Farsi in Iran, and fed the myth that most Australians lived in the bush, owned a kangaroo and lived a simple, happy-go-lucky life.
Other than Skippy and Rolf Harris on children’s TV in the UK, Australia had little presence on international screens in TV’s first 20-odd years. But we began to develop extra dimensions in the following decade when a bumper crop of locally made serials were lapped up by international audiences. The Young Doctors (1976–81), The Restless Years (1977–81) and Sons and Daughters (1982–87) were all popular overseas, but the late-blooming surprise of the 1980s was the cult hit Prisoner (1979–86).
As Prisoner: Cell Block H it cracked the tough US market; it was a hit in Canada as Caged Women and became a cult classic in the UK, where the show’s theme song, ‘On The Inside’ peaked at number three on the British pop charts. Maggie Kirkpatrick, who played the original sadistic and corrupt screw, Joan ‘The Freak’ Ferguson, also starred in three successful UK runs of Prisoner Cell Block H: The Musical, and was still being mobbed by fans in the UK during the 1990s.
Many Australian serials took some time to find their niche, however. When Neighbours first premiered on the BBC in 1986, British critics dismissed it as another Coronation Street. But soon after switching from a morning to an evening timeslot, Neighbours fever hit; in 1988 and 1989 – the Kylie and Jason years – Neighbours pulled in over 14 million British viewers every night.
Our shows have always been most popular in the UK. ITV and Channel 5 even launched a bidding war for the rights to Home and Away, which continued to build on the image of Australia as a laid-back place with eternally sunny backdrops. But the most recent batch of Aussie soaps enjoys success that is more widespread. Each day over 60 million viewers in 48 countries tune in to see what’s happening in Summer Bay, and at its peak Neighbours was screened in over 50 countries across Europe, Asia and Africa.
The Australian landscape has also featured heavily in Australia’s character-driven shows. Our widest selling series to date, Water Rats (1996–2001), shot against the backdrop of Sydney Harbour, has sold to over 180 countries – more than any other TV show in the world. Tough country women take on the Australian countryside in McLeod’s Daughters (2001–), which has sold to over 100 countries, and the Australian bush is an integral part of the rural-town setting of Blue Heelers (1994–), which has screened in over 50 countries.
Versions have also been tweaked for overseas markets. Prisoner was the model for the US series Dangerous Women and Germany’s Hinter Gittern; The Restless Years was remade for Holland and Germany, while Sweden and Germany also developed their own Sons and Daughters. The popular ABC comedy Mother and Son was one of our most popular remakes: it was repackaged for Britain, Canada, Sweden, Turkey, Chile, Greece and Denmark.
Hit Aussie TV shows have also launched the careers of some of our most high-profile celebrities and entertainers. Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Natalie Imbruglia, Holly Valance and Delta Goodrem all established successful international singing careers off the Neighbours springboard.
Whether it’s the lure of living by the beach, or simply the window onto another culture that interests foreign viewers, there’s no denying some Aussie TV shows have taken Australia, albeit a fictional version of it, to the rest of the world. Perhaps, as Barry Crocker so famously sang in the Neighbours theme song, everybody needs good neighbours.
International remakes – hits and misses
> America made its own version of the saucy Aussie series Number 96 in 1980. Starring John Travolta’s sister, Ellen, it was set in the Californian apartment complex called 96 Pacific Way. Strict nudity laws on US TV meant it was tame in comparison to the original. It only lasted four nights.
> The hardcore German version of Prisoner, Hinter Gittern - der Frauenknast (Behind Bars – The Women’s Prison) became one of the most popular weekly dramas ever to appear on German TV. It regularly locks in over six million viewers.
> The Dutch remake of The Restless Years, Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden (Good Times, Bad Times), first screened in 1990 and was an instant hit. The soap was Holland’s highest rating prime-time TV show in the late 1990s, and is still running today.
> Australia’s Sons and Daughters has been the template for several dysfunctional family soaps. The German remake, Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love), is one of the country’s top daily serials, and local versions were also made in Greece (Apagoreymeni Agapi), Indonesia (Belahan Hati) and Sweden (Skilda Världar).
> Bananas in Pyjamas has been dubbed in Korean, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Finnish, and has a viewing audience of over 200 million kids in over 50 countries.
1994
1994 is a year of big debuts. Popular drama series like Blue Heelers and Heartbreak High appear on our screens, as does a popular sports show that knocks ’em dead in the ratings without any live footage. Did you know it is also the year we welcome two rather shrill suburbanites, better known as Kath and Kim, into our living rooms for the first time?
On the beat with Blue Heelers
January: Serial dramas in Australia are so often set in a police station, emergency ward or lawyer’s office, that you’d think we’d be sick of them. But if the response to Blue Heelers is any indication, the exact opposite is true. Essentially a clever combination of A Country Practice and Cop Shop, this new kid on the block appears to have the X-factor, attracting lead actors of the calibre of John Wood and wooing viewers with its high drama, heart-warming emotion and laconic Aussie humour.
‘Most television – in my opinion – is very banal,’ Wood told TV Week shortly after Blue Heelers debuted. ‘But a show such as Blue Heelers can create the sort of stories that involve people in real drama. It’s the closest most people come in their everyday lives to Greek tragedy.’
Wood plays Senior Sergeant Tom Croydon, boss of the Mount Thomas Police Station. Renowned for being tough, but ultimately fair, Wood told TV Week the character is not at all like him.
‘I’m about as tough as a doona, so Tom is a long way from what I’m really like,’ Wood said.
Whether Blue Heelers reaches the heights of Greek tragedy remains to be seen, but what’s obvious already is that viewers are still fond of a ‘better world’. For all the drama and crime in Mount Thomas, fans love the values-over-action formula the show offers. Perhaps unlike their city counterparts, the people of Mount Thomas still talk to their neighbours, and the police actually care about protecting them from the evil forces at work in the community.
And if casting has anything to do with winning an audience, then Blue Heelers seems set for a long run. Playing the main characters alongside Wood are renowned actors like William McInness, Martin Sacks and Lisa McCune (the checkout chick from the Coles ads), who plays young police officer Maggie Doyle, a non-local who gets a very tough welcome to life in Mount Thomas.
If ratings, reviews and viewer reaction are any guide, there’s already a sense that the good folks of Mount Thoma
s and Channel Seven might be onto something special.
Nobody’s living in paradise
Paradise Beach is no more. Despite all the hype surrounding its launch, the show just never cut it – either with critics or with audiences. As soon as the first episodes screened in May last year, the producers must have known they were in trouble. It had its Australian timeslot changed three times as ratings dived, dropping from 18 to 11 by the end of the first week. In the all-important US market, it was gone from screens by the end of their summer.
Nine persevered, and even signed a second series as the show became popular in Europe. Still, the show went out in style: the final episode featured a cyclone, an iron-man contest and a hit-and-run murder attempt.
Harvey McHugh stirs parliament
May: Who said politicians take themselves too seriously? The producers of Harvey McHugh, that’s who. With the ABC’s new satirical drama The Damnation of Harvey McHugh ready to go, producers got a rude shock when the Speaker of the Victorian Legislative Assembly, Mr John Delzoppo, banned the launch from taking place at Parliament House.
‘I’ve seen a script, and it doesn’t paint parliament or parliamentarians in a very good light,’ he said.
McHugh is the story of a man searching for a permanent job in the public service. The minister he works for becomes embroiled in all manner of controversy – corruption, terrorism and murder – and Harvey is disenchanted by what he finds in the corridors of power.
Mr Delzoppo’s ruling won’t have helped. ‘We won’t allow Queen’s Hall to be used for commercial purposes, political purposes or in any production where Parliament is ridiculed or satirised.’
Dear O Dear
February: If you thought Perfect Match pushed the boundaries of good taste in its day, wait until you see Man O Man. Start with ten male contestants who love the limelight. Have them perform pick-up lines, songs, dance routines and a muscle-flexing competition – while clad only in Speedoes – before an audience of tipsy, over-excited females. Are you starting to see why Green Guide writer Richard Plunkett described Man O Man as ‘thrillingly vulgar’?