50 Years of Television in Australia
Page 12
Their enthusiasm for local drama production was not widely shared by the networks and incredibly no one wanted to touch Homicide at first. In fact, Ian ‘nephew of Hector’ Crawford told TV Eye magazine that he thought ‘Channel Seven just bought the bloody thing to shut Hector up! They had no idea it would be a success.’
But a success it was – a huge success at that – and before you could say ‘You have the right to remain silent’, Nine and Ten were at the Crawfords’ door requesting police series of their own. The resulting Division 4 and Matlock Police were equally popular, and cemented Crawfords’ already cosy relationship with Victoria Police. All three series were cancelled close to each other in 1975, and when cop shows reemerged a few years later, they had a distinctly soapy edge to them.
Some soaps were upstanding citizens (Cop Shop), others committed crimes against humanity (Waterloo Station, Richmond Hill, Above the Law), but all shifted the focus from hard men walking the beat to the relationships of those who uphold the law. This more personal approach ensured the continued popularity of the genre, whether seen through the previously unexplored grit of Phoenix, Janus and Wildside, or the postcard escapism of Water Rats and Blue Heelers.
Actors seem to have enjoyed donning the starched blue uniform, many earning reputations as repeat offenders. Both George Mallaby and Alwyn Kurts made the transition from Homicide to Cop Shop, John Stanton was able to draw on elements of the tough Sgt Pat Kelly he played in Homicide to create the title character of Bellamy, and Gary Sweet stole the show as both Steve ‘Mickey’ McClintock in Police Rescue and Stingers’ Luke Harris. Paul Cronin and his alter ego, motorcycle cop Gary Hogan, relished their very own Matlock Police spin-off series, Solo One, while Simon Westaway was able to build on his Phoenix character, Peter Faithfull, in Janus. And let’s not forget Bill Stalker, who must have made Australian cop show history by moving an entire character, airport security officer Peter Fanelli, from the axed Skyways to Cop Shop in 1981.
But it wasn’t just actors who got a second run in the genre. Few will remember Bluey, the Crawfords’ production that aired unremarkably from 1976 to 1977, but who could forget Bargearse, the series that resulted from a spot of overdubbing by The Late Show in 1992? Equally, some cop shows barely lasted their first airing – the tough female officers of Skirts (1990) and the glamour rookies of Young Lions (2002) were among those who got away almost undetected.
The most famous cops who clocked in charming performances in top-rating series were Gerard Kennedy as Detective Sergeant Frank Banner in Division 4 and Lisa McCune as Blue Heelers’ Constable Maggie Doyle. These defenders of character development were duly rewarded with gold Logies, Kennedy in 1971 and 1972, and McCune with four consecutive wins from 1997 to 2000.
From Mount Thomas to Riverside, Kingsway to Matlock, our TV cops have emerged from life and death situations as downright popular players. And we sleep soundly at night, safe in the knowledge that police shows, and the human dramas they play host to, are out there protecting us from mediocre TV.
Not your average cop shows
For a spin on the instant cop show formula, just add:
> A half-Aboriginal detective and a dash of outback flavour (Boney, 1972–73).
> A medical edge with a doctor on secondment to the police department (Silent Number, 1974–75).
> An emphasis on fast-paced action and fancy electronic gadgets (Special Squad, 1984–85).
> Two diametrically opposed detectives solving grim homicides in spite of their differences (Murder Call, 1997–99).
> An ambitious attempt at creating a sleuth who spoke to dogs (Magda Szubanski’s Dogwoman, 2000).
> A conflicting mix of working-class and white-collar coppers (White Collar Blue, 2002–03).
> The Colin Friels’ take on cold-case cops in BlackJack (2003–05).
1967
Seven strikes gold with our biggest pop group, the ABC aims for the kids that Channel 0 ignored and Nine places its faith in a show about a kangaroo. Television keeps shrinking the world, and the world in turn keeps shrinking TVs. Neat, huh?
Can Adventure Island or a mute bear fill the Circle?
September: Young Australians have high hopes that a new ABC TV show, Adventure Island, can fill the void left by the recently axed Magic Circle Club. The new ABC daytime show will premiere this month, starring both Nancy Cato and Liz Harris from the axed show. Adventure Island, featuring the dramatic playing of a storyline read from a magic book by Nancy each week, is expected to have an audience of more than one million Australian children.
Channel 0’s immensely popular The Magic Circle Club, starring Fredd Bear, was unexpectedly chopped earlier this year, shortly after recording its 500th show. At the time, there was outrage from viewers and even the Broadcasting Control Board’s chairman, Mr Myles Wright, recorded his sorrow at seeing ‘a constructive program for children being replaced’.
Cato, still battling to walk at the time as she recovered from severe spinal injuries suffered in a bizarre on-set prop rainbow accident, was horrified, saying a return to work on The Magic Circle Club was one of the things that had kept her going through her ordeal.
The fact that The Magic Circle Club, along with several other daytime shows on 0, was axed to make way for 20 hours per week of horse racing and trotting was received badly. TV Week’s editorial described the axing as ‘a cold blooded assassination’.
Speaking to that magazine, the honorary secretary of the Australian Olympic Federation said: ‘Commercial stations have an obligation to the public for the privilege of a television licence, and this extends to children. The kids are entitled to their fun just as much as racing or trotting fans. If I were the big man with the last word, I’d make sure these stations lived up to their obligations.’
If Adventure Island doesn’t work, younger viewers will be pleased with the continuing success of the Adelaide-based show, Here’s Humphrey. Devised two years ago by NWS-9 executives in the South Australian capital, Humphrey B. Bear was named through a children’s contest to come up with a moniker and earlier this year, partnered by Pam Western, graduated to a national show.
Coast to coast, The Seekers show breaks records
March: One of the most popular specials ever filmed for Australian TV has included mega-group The Seekers performing their songs in locations right across Australia. The Seekers Down Under special, which saw The Seekers performing from the Gold Coast and Barossa Valley to the steps of the almost-completed Sydney Opera House, has been a smash hit for HSV-7, attracting unprecedented ratings.
A one-hour feature, the show saw the quartet singing Australian folk songs and was shot in colour to be suitable for American broadcasts.
Thorpe in drug furore
July: One of Australia’s brightest pop stars is at the centre of a drug furore after telling viewers of Go!! that he intended to take LSD and relate his experiences on a future program. Billy Thorpe, the 21-year-old host of Go!! , announced his plans during a discussion on the program about drugs. Concerned ATV-0 viewers who heard Thorpe’s statements rang the station as well as the police drug squad and the state health department.
Speaking to TV Week, a doctor warned: ‘Thorpe’s “trip” could be a passport to madness, which could lead to a mind-bursting ride to a mental breakdown.’
It would also be a ratings winner. Thorpe declared later that he intended to go through with the ‘trip’, albeit in a psychiatric centre under controlled supervision.
‘Every experience that hits me with LSD will be recorded for passing onto thousands of teenagers everywhere,’ he said, ignoring medical warnings. ‘It could be my life or my reputation but someone has to do it.’
It’s a small world after all, on TV
June: The most ambitious world wide satellite television link-up ever has been greeted with acclaim, beamed to a global audience of 300 million in the pre-dawn experiment.
The BBC’s Our World program screened a global show that featured Melbourne trams along wi
th Japanese prawn farmers, a Spanish fishing fleet, Swedish canoeists, a Vienna boys choir in action and images from nine other countries, with translators working in real-time in each country, over the top of the ‘international’ soundtrack.
Our World screened in Australia at 5 am, and was quickly hailed as a landmark moment in bringing the world together.
ON DEBUT
> This Day Tonight – public affairs program
> Western Music Hall – musical program
> Take a Letter – with Jimmy Hannan
> Jeopardy – game show with Bill Collins
> Pied Piper – Keith Smith interviews kids
> Survey – national arts and review show with Mungo MacCallum
> Celebrity Squares – game show
> The Bert Newton Show – Saturday night variety show
> Hunter – Australian counter-espionage series starring Tony Ward
> I’m Alright Now – series of musicals with Toni Lamond and Reg Livermore
> Chit Chat – morning women’s program
> Kevin Dennis Squares – game show compered by Michael Williamson
> Bellbird – popular evening series set in a small Victorian town and starring Robin Ramsay
> The Marriage Game – fun game show based on a successful US show
> Blind Date – game show
> Gordon and the Girls – comedy
> Divorce Court – courtroom drama
> Adventures of the Seaspray – adventure series
> Hey You! – comedy series
> Contrabandits – crime series
> The Barry Creyton Show – afternoon comedy variety series
> Behind the News – ABC schools program
> Brian and the Juniors – teenage musical talent show (below) And from overseas comes:
> Til Death Do Us Part – BBC comedy
> Daktari – jungle adventure
> Mission: Impossible – suspense series
> Superman – animated series
> Batman – with Adam West
Skippy, the star kangaroo
September: Get ready for Australian TV’s brand new star – a grey female kangaroo. Skippy, as the roo is known, is about to jump onto our screens, making the hop from the peaceful grass of Koala Sanctuary at Kuringai Chase, north of Sydney, to prime-time television on the Nine Network.
On the evidence of a crafted one-hour colour pilot, Nine has bought the show, paying its highest-ever price for a series, whether from Australia or overseas. It has a high-profile evening timeslot pencilled for the show.
Co-producer Lee Robinson told TV Week that a full year of work had gone into creating the pilot, which was so good that Skippy was quickly sold to Britain and Canada, as well as the Nine Network, with Japan, the USA and European countries also showing interest.
There’s a lot to like. Described as Australia’s answer to Flipper, Skippy plays an orphaned kangaroo who joins a Waratah national park ranger and his sons for adventures. Handsome Sydney actor Ed Devereux will star as ranger Matt Hammond while dashing young star Tony Bonner plays the assistant ranger and helicopter pilot. A 16-year-old, Ken James, and eight-year-old Gary Pankhurst will play the ranger’s sons.
In an inspired move, a blonde German actress, Elke Neidhardt, has been cast as a research doctor working at the park, while teenage blonde Liza Goddard has also been woven into the plot, leaving room in the storylines for potential romance.
With the show being written by Australians, plots will include ‘Skippy helping to capture koala stealers, Skippy being kidnapped and Skippy leading rescuers to a car which has gone over a cliff,’ Robinson said.
TV technology gets better – and smaller
July: The Japanese Sony Corporation is reported to have invented a seven-inch colour TV set – and a one-inch portable TV!
The New York Times’ Weekly Review reports that the seven-inch colour screen will be available next year. The pocket model one-inch screen was developed as an example of the company’s technical skill, although some at Sony believe it could be developed as a commercial product.
Meanwhile, another Japanese company has unveiled a double-sided television set, with screens on the front and back, so that it could be placed into a wall between two rooms and screen into both. It could also be placed on a table in the middle of a room for audiences on either side, Hayakawa Electric Company executives explained.
Daring love scene cut
July: The Australian Broadcasting Control Board has stepped in to demand a small cut from the first episode of the controversial new Australian drama, You Can’t See Around Corners.
There were viewer complaints after the episode was shown in Melbourne and Sydney, with accusations that the scene in question was ‘indecent’. The cut scene depicts an attempt by the main character of the series, Frank McCoy, played by Sydney actor Ken Shorten, to seduce his girlfriend, Marge, played by Rowena Wallace. The cut lasts seven seconds, although the sound track was allowed to continue.
Stations chicken out over Mavis Bramston
December: Networks in three states have censored the Sydney-based Mavis Bramston Show’s Christmas Special after being warned about the show by the Broadcasting Control Board. While the Control Board said decisions about whether to censor were left to the discretion of individual stations, one TV executive told TV Week that he had received a phone call from the Board, ‘advising’ him of troublesome segments.
The offending sketch involved a man eating chicken, intercut with a priest taking communion, intended to depict the commercialisation of Christmas.
It’s not the first time the controversial comedy show has been snipped by censors. In April, an outrageous parody of Jayne Mansfield was cut by HSV-7 Melbourne because executives said it did not meet the family image they were building.
Twilight time?
November: Popular local band The Twilights will join funny girl Mary Hardy in a pilot for a brand new musical situation comedy series that has ‘the Australian Monkees’ written all over it.
The group, led by bright young star Glen Shorrock, will not only act but also perform in each episode. Word has it that well-known real-life pop stars will turn up on the show, both singing and acting. Hardy will play the band’s secretary.
The show will be called Once Upon a Twilight and we should know by the end of the year whether it’s been given the green light.
It’s been a strange old year for Channel 0’s Jimmy Hannan. The 1965 Gold Logie winner has been dumped by his station and has been getting paid a reported $500 per week to ‘cool his heels’ while he disputes his sacking.
MEMORIES
> Tommy Hanlon’s It Could Be You is dropped, after running for nearly six years and giving away close to $250,000 in prizes.
> Worth more than $3000, Graham Kennedy’s new complex electronic set for IMT includes a TV receiver, a slide projector, a tape recorder and a radio. The desk is also fitted to squirt water and can launch projectiles with the touch of a hidden foot pedal.
> Pick-a-Box, the longest-running show on local TV, celebrates its 10th birthday.
> Popular radio disc jockey Lionel York is given his own half-hour show on GTV-9, called Lionel York Presents.
> According to an expert, colour TV will mean stars who enjoy a drink before going on air will have to take care they’re not red faced; bright-patterned clothing will be a no-no; men will have to be careful to prevent five o’clock shadows and will have to wear lipstick to look natural.
> A survey of TV viewing habits in Melbourne shows 49 per cent of people object to underwear commercials.
> Prime Minister Holt’s disappearance produces the biggest nationwide live TV coverage ever seen in Australia.
> Bobby and Laurie (below), Australian TV’s top pop duo and comperes of Dig We Must, split up.
> Gold Logies: Graham Kennedy and Hazel Phillips
> Australian Television Personality of the Decade: Graham Kennedy
> Best Commercial:
Minties
QUIZ SHOWS
Australia’s love affair with TV trivia owes a lot to its radio origins … and heavy borrowing from overseas networks. But we’ve made them our own. Whether you want to be a ‘Mooyon-aire’, pick a box, a prism or just show off your rock history nous at a greasy Melbourne pub, rest assured the TV Quiz is not in Jeopardy.
I knew that
Contestants ready? Hands on buzzers, your time starts … NOW!
Which pioneer TV quiz show was the first to hit big on Aussie screens?
(a) Philip Brady’s Money Makers
(b) The Coles £3000 Question
(c) Pick-a-Box
(d) It’s Academic?
If you answered (c) Pick-a-Box, you’d be correct. Husband-and-wife team Bob and Dolly Dyer introduced the question–answer format to Australian TV in 1957, having mastered the format as a radio show for nearly a decade. The show became an early favourite with viewers every Monday night and paved the way for what was to be a winning streak in television entertainment. When Dyer won the Gold Logie in 1961, it also established a trend for quiz show hosts becoming big, big stars in the Australian TV firmament.
Other shows soon followed Pick-a-Box. The Coles £3000 Question (which became the $6000 Question with the advent of decimal currency, and then the $7000 Question when they upped the prize money) was hugely popular, and was followed by It’s Academic (schoolkids only, thanks), Philip Brady’s Money Makers (which eventually blew Question out of the water with a $25,000 prize), Jeopardy and Huw Evans’ Mastermind, to name a few of the most popular. The Ampol Stamp Quiz (1964–65) and the Family Bowl Quiz (1969) were two that didn’t quite capture public imagination to the same degree.