50 year reunion for GMV6

It is almost fifty years since the launch of Shepparton television station GMV6.  The channel made its official debut on Saturday, 23 December 1961 – only two weeks after the launch of Australia’s first regional television station, GLV10 Gippsland, and on the same day as another station, BCV8 Bendigo.

GMV6’s opening night kicked off at 6.00pm with Personalities Parade, a 15-minute segment featuring some of the channel’s new stars including local presenters Nancy Cato (who went on to national fame as the presenter of The Magic Circle Club and Adventure Island) and Jim Lilburne and national stars Bobby Limb and Dawn Lake.

US shows Robin Hood, Father Knows Best and Sea Hunt occupied the next couple of hours along with the channel’s first news bulletin before the station was officially opened just after 8.00pm by Deputy Prime Minister John McEwen.

The opening night entertainment continued with the BP Super Show, the movie Random Harvest and then a late news update before the epilogue and sign-off for the night.

At the time of its launch GMV6 had a staff of 19 and broadcast for around 32 hours a week.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the launch of the station a staff reunion is being planned for any employees of the channel between 1961 and 1989 – when GMV6’s local call-sign, identity and production was being phased out to become part of the VIC TV network, based in Ballarat, in the lead up to the aggregation of regional television markets in Victoria in 1992.

In October 1994, VIC TV was bought out by the NSW-based WIN television network.  Last year WIN vacated the building premises – in Wyndham Street, Shepparton – that had housed WIN and its predecessors since 1961.  A few months ago the building was demolished and a new digital broadcast facility for the network will be built on the site.

The reunion dinner will be held at the Shepparton RSL on Saturday, 5 November and will be compered by former GMV6 personalities Chris Eddy and Jan Deane.  The night will also include a display of memorabilia and video presentations.  There will also be lunch available at the same venue the following day, enabling attendees another chance to see the displays and to catch up with former colleagues.

Any former GMV employees interested in more information or to make bookings for the dinner event – cost is $40 per head which covers Registration, a two-course meal and tea/coffee – are invited to contact the GMV reunion organisers via gmvreunion@gmail.com

Following is the WIN News story from 2010 when WIN moved out of the original GMV6 premises…

… and GMV6’s 25th anniversary special that went to air in December 1986:

YouTube videos: regionaltv

Obituary: Godfrey Philipp

Godfrey Philipp, the co-creator of children’s programs The Magic Circle Club and Adventure Island, has died and this week has been remembered by former colleagues at a memorial service in Melbourne.

Coming to Australia from the UK in the late 1950s, Philipp joined GTV9 as a production assistant, working on programs including In Melbourne Tonight.  He then went to NBN3, Newcastle, as a senior producer-director.

Then, back in Melbourne, he co-created The Magic Circle Club – a lavishly-produced children’s series that was one of the first productions to come from new Melbourne channel ATV0 in the mid 1960s.  The pantomime series was created by Philipp and writer John Michael Howson and starred Nancy Cato amongst a crew of characters including Fredd Bear (Tedd Dunn), Fee Fee Bear, Leonardo di Funbird, Marlena de Witch, Mother Hubbard, Cassius Cuckoo, Sir Jasper Crookley, Twaddle and Boddle and Patricia-who-wishes.

There were masses of protest from young fans when The Magic Circle Club was axed by ATV0 after more than 500 episodes in May 1967.  Philipp then went on to produce Hey You!, a short-lived sitcom from the same channel.

Philipp and Howson then went across to ABC to create Adventure Island, a similar concept and format to The Magic Circle Club that would go on to be just as popular and would run for five years before its axing was also met with outrage from young viewers.

Despite the sudden axing of the program, in 1973 Philipp was awarded a Logie for his contribution to children’s television.

Howson paid tribute to his former colleague at the memorial service:

''He did things with black and white television - pre all the wonderful digital magic that they now have - that were amazing.  'If I came up with, 'they're up on the moon and they catch a rocket there', he would work out how to do that. With one light, he'd change the whole effect of a scene. People come up to me today and say, 'oh the colours (of Adventure Island) were beautiful. I tell them, 'it wasn't in colour, it was in black-and-white'.''

In 1978, he produced another children’s series, Rainbow, for regional television station NRN11 in Coffs Harbour.  The series, comprising five episodes, featured children from local schools with each episode covering a different theme.  The program won a TV Week Logie Award in 1979 for most outstanding contribution to children’s television but was never picked up for screening by a capital city network.

Philipp then went to the Reg Grundy Organisation where he produced and directed episodes of the popular drama Prisoner.

As the years went on Howson said that Philipp – “who was not emotionally strong” – had started to “cut himself off from the world.”  It is believed that he was homeless for some time and spent the last ten years of his life at the Brotherhood of St Lawrence aged care centre in Fitzroy – the venue of this week’s memorial service.

“I will always remember Godfrey with a great deal of love and affection, great memories and gratitude for what he did,'' Howson said.

Source: TV Times, 20 January 1965.  TV Week, 24 February 1973. TV Week, 24 March 1979. The Age.

ABC to say goodbye to Gordon Street?

ABC is set to expand its premises in inner-city Melbourne with construction of a new television studio.

The new development, which has now been approved by the ABC board, will be built adjacent to the broadcaster’s existing radio and administration complex in Southbank.

The new television studios will be used for both internal productions as well as being made available for external hire.

No timeline for the development has been announced and neither has there been any announcement as to the future of ABC’s existing Melbourne television studios in Gordon Street, Elsternwick, although The Age reports that it appears that the property will be sold off to assist in funding the new development.  In 2009 the Elsternwick site was estimated to be valued at around $25 million.

The Elsternwick studios, located next door to the historic Ripponlea homestead, were opened in May 1958 – eighteen months after ABC’s Melbourne television station ABV2 commenced transmission.  For the previous eighteen months the various functions of the new television station were carried out from makeshift premises scattered around Melbourne.

The studios have hosted various productions for ABC including Bellbird, Adventure Island (pictured), Countdown, Power Without Glory, The Saturday Show, Australia – You’re Standing In It, The Factory, Countdown Revolution, The Big Gig, The Late Show, Phoenix and Seachange. 

Spicks And Specks, The Marngrook Footy Show and Adam Hills In Gordon Street Tonight are also produced at Elsternwick.

The potential sale of the Elsternwick site comes after the sale of the historic GTV9 studios in Richmond last year – while Seven and Ten have long moved out from their original studio premises in South Melbourne and Nunawading respectively.

Source: The Age, The Australian, ABV, ABC, Real Estate Source

Gordon Street goes back to the future

Spicks And Specks host Adam Hills (pictured) launches his new talk show, Adam Hills In Gordon Street Tonight, this week on ABC1.

The title of the program refers to the location of the Melbourne ABV2 studios, which were opened in May 1958 and have hosted many productions for the national broadcaster in the decades that have followed.

In promoting the new series – with the tagline “it’s the future of television” – ABC has dug out some archival footage of some early programs to come from the Gordon Street studios, including children’s series Adventure Island (1967-1972).

Adam Hills In Gordon Street Tonight. Premieres Wednesday 9 February, 8.30pm.  ABC1.  Repeated Saturday 7.30pm, ABC2.

Tedd Dunn

Tedd Dunn, the man who put life into the TV character Fredd Bear, has died from cancer.

Dunn, 66, was a fashion designer and was wardrobe manager at the new Melbourne channel ATV0 when the station was looking for ideas for a children’s show. He created the costume for Fredd Bear (the two Ds taken from his own name) and subsequently ended up wearing it, as he made the costume so big that, with his towering frame, he was the only one who could wear it.

Dunn, as the non-speaking Fredd Bear, made his on-camera debut on ATV0 in August 1964 on The Children’s Show, which became The Magic Circle Club, hosted by Nancy Cato.

Portraying Fredd Bear, in a suit made up of fur and padding and not allowing much circulation, almost threatened Dunn’s own life when he appeared in the Melbourne Moomba procession in 1965. Normally the suit can only be worn for about 45 minutes, but delays on the day caused Dunn to be in costume for over two hours and he was close to blacking out. Always the professional, Dunn refused to remove the headpiece from the suit to allow him to breathe and therefore ruin the illusion of Fredd Bear from his young fans. He managed to stay conscious long enough to hand over a bunch of flowers to Prince Phillip at the end of the procession. The incident led to several months’ recovery for Dunn, and upon returning to the channel he re-designed the outfit to reduce heat and improve circulation.

After The Magic Circle Club was axed, many of those involved moved over to ABC to create Adventure Island, but Dunn stayed at ATV0 where the Fredd Bear character lived on in Fredd Bear’s Breakfast-A-Go-Go from 1969 to 1971. The two-hour program, starring Fredd Bear with Judy Banks (pictured, with Fredd), Mike McCarthy and Colin McEwan, featured a mix of cartoons and studio segments and became a ratings hit in a timeslot not normally known for high ratings.

Later going on to be a producer at ATV0, in 1975 Dunn won a TV Week Logie award for Most Outstanding Creative Effort after his work on special presentations Gown Of The Year and The Sound Of Christmas as well as Frankie Howerd specials.

Source: Melbourne Observer, From The Word GO! – Forty Years Of Ten Melbourne, TV Tonight, Herald Sun, TV Week 15 March 1975.

1979: July 14-20

Prisoner’s key women
TV Times talks to three of the stars of the popular new series Prisoner about their roles and what the show means to them.

Elspeth Ballantyne, who plays prison warder Meg Jackson, said that Prisoner has proven that women can handle a show on their own.  “Prisoner is a very good series.  It has a lot of dramatic qualities.  It moves quickly and has good storylines provided by some top writers. I have made some good friends while working on the series, such as Fiona Spence.  The cast members are a terrific group of women who are very professional.  I’m also amazed that there hasn’t been any bitchiness.”  But mother-of-two Ballantyne will not allow her children – Matthew, 9, and Tobias, 7 – to watch the program: “It’s an adult show and they are in bed when it’s on at 8.30pm.”

Patsy King, who plays prison governor Erica Davidson, has had a varied background in radio and television – including appearing in the children’s programs Play School and Adventure Island and in the long-running drama Bellbird.  King was also on tour around northern Australia in the play Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll:  “There were seven of us in the cast and we were chauffeur-driven up the Birdsville Track, playing at every little town we came to.  Then we had a couple of rest days, which we spent by a river infested with snakes and crocodiles, and spiders as big as your hand.  What a rest that turned out to be.”  Her new role in Prisoner is hard work, but hopes that the series goes on for a long time:  “I’m enjoying playing Erica because she is different and the character is really developing now.  I can see a lot more aspects to her.”

Fiona Spence, who plays prison warden Vera Bennett, had spent the last few years travelling and studying drama at the University Of New South Wales.  After a guest role in Glenview High and some TV commercials, the role of Ms Bennett is Spence’s first major role:  “I’m happy with Vera.  She’s very dramatic and in some ways like myself.  She is very unpopular with the public and the more they hate her, the better it is for me.  Then I know the character is working.”  Eventually, Spence hopes to go into theatre:  “I’ve never done professional stage work, only university plays.  Then I’d like to try films.  I’m not really fussy about what I do.  However, I can’t sing or dance, so I don’t want to be in a musical.  Drama is what I’m best at.”

700 million will see Miss Universe crowned
A worldwide audience of an estimated 700 million will see Miss Universe 1979 when it is held in Perth this week.  The two-hour ceremony, from Perth’s Entertainment Centre, has been years in the planning and will be beamed to 50 countries.  Viewers around the world will see the event live but Australians will see it on a delayed telecast as the ceremony is timed to start at 9.00am, Perth time, this Friday.

Current affairs for kids
Children are to get their own daily current affairs program along the lines of Willesee At Seven and This Day Tonight.  The new program, yet to be titled, is being produced for the 0-10 Network by former Willesee At Seven reporter and producer Simon Townsend (pictured) and has been approved by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal for screening with a ‘C’ classification.  The pilot for the program was produced by Townsend in 1977 on a grant from the Nine Network.  Nine decided not to proceed with the program and even though Nine funded the pilot, it remained Townsend’s property.  Only days after the pilot was given the ‘C’ classification, Townsend received a call from the 0-10 Network.  No screening date for the program has been set as yet.

Briefly…
Actor Peter Cousens has been announced as host of ABC’s new children’s environmental series Earthwatch.  Cousens will be joined by a forum of four to six children, and the program will include singing and dancing, news clips and a current affairs segment. 

The winner of last year’s series of The Inventors, David Little, will be a guest when the show returns this week for its tenth year.  Little’s invention, a solar tracker/heater, is now ready for world distribution and Little is now hoping for a financial return of several millions of dollars.

Viewers of The Young Doctors may see a slimmer Ada Simmonds (Gwen Plumb, pictured) next year.  The actress has accepted a challenge to lose 6 kg or give $1000 to the next Appealathon, due for early next year, on Perth’s STW9.

Viewpoint: Letters to the Editor:
”Whatever happened to the good old Saturday night B-grade horror movies?  They were bad but I still miss them.” G. Barnard, NSW.

“I couldn’t believe it when I read, in the Sunday papers, about all those people who rang up channels ATN7 and TCN9 about TEN10’s screening of Last Tango In Paris.  If these people bought some meat from their butcher and, upon coming home, found it was off, would they then go to their nearest chemist and complain about it?”  M. Powell, NSW.

“I am only 15 years old and even I know it is very rude to say people 100 years old.  Also, Mrs Doolan (Viewpoint, 16 June 1979), can’t you find something a little better to pick on than a commercial?  Which, by the way, I, and I am sure many others, find amusing.” D. Hassell, QLD.

What’s On (July 14-20):
ATV0 crosses to Melbourne’s Flemington Racecourse on Saturday afternoon for live coverage of Grand National Day, with races called by Clem Dimsey.

This Week Has Seven Days (HSV7, Saturday) features an interview with Peter Mayle, author of Where Did I Come From. 

ABC programs The Inventors and A Big Country both return with new episodes this week. 

In Prisoner (ATV0, Tuesday and Wednesday), Lyn (Kerry Armstrong, pictured) is released from Wentworth Detention Centre and is met by an unexpected welcoming party.  Joyce (Judy Nunn) makes Monica (Lesley Baker) an offer she finds hard to refuse.

On Friday night, GTV9 presents a delayed coverage of the 1979 Miss Universe pageant, held at Perth’s Entertainment Centre earlier that day.  The event is hosted by American personalities Helen O’Connell and Bob Barker.  Donny Osmond will be a guest performer, and judges include Carol Lynley, Lana Cantrell, LeVar Burton and Ita Buttrose.

ABC presents live coverage of the 1979 British Golf Championship from Royal Lytham, St Anne’s Lancashire, England.  Telecast starts on Friday night at 9.25pm and continues for six hours.

Sunday night movies: The Great Waldo Pepper (HSV7), The Dove (GTV9), Freebie And The Bean (ATV0).  ABC presents the first episode of Ride On Stranger, a four-part series set in Australia in the 1930s starring Liddy Clark, Noni Hazlehurst, Henri Szeps, Barbara Wyndon, Bunney Brooke and Michael Aitkens.

Source: TV Times (Melbourne edition), 14 July 1979.  ABC/ACP