1991: May 18-24

Craig’s heroic new look
For his role as Lieutenant Walter Carey in the Seven Network mini-series Heroes II – The Return, actor Craig McLachlan (pictured) has had to shed his trademark curly locks.  “I feel different,” McLachlan told TV Week, staring at the mirror.  “I feel like a new man.”  The mini-series will also star John Bach, Christopher Morsley, Brett Partridge, Simon Burke, Miranda Otto and Anne-Louise Lambert.

“If you don’t like it, sack me!”
A major row has erupted between the producers of E Street and Network Ten executives over controversial episodes set to air later this month.  In the episodes, Harley (Malcolm Kennard) is introduced to cocaine by a friend of Sheridan (Kate Raison) and ends up in a raunchy sex scene with two girls and collapses from an overdose.  Network executives have said the episodes are not suitable for the show’s 7.30pm timeslot, and may be stopped from going to air.  Producer Forrest Redlich is determined for the episodes to go to air after seeing a friend of his suffer from cocaine abuse.  “I have a mate who’s just had a really bad thing with cocaine,” he told TV Week.  “He is 45.  He had a really good business happening, made a lot of money and put half of it up his nose.  It’s bad news.  Basically, the episodes have caused a ruckus with Ten.  I’ve pulled rank on them and said, ‘That’s the story.  I want to do it.  If you don’t like it, sack me’.”

Aussie lands US soap role
Former Number 96 star Chard Hayward (pictured), who has lived in the United States since the series ended in the late 1970s, has recently completed a role in NBC daytime soap opera Santa Barbara.  Hayward, who played camp movie buff Dudley Butterfield in Number 96, plays the role of nightclub singer Richard Sedgewick.  The character has a short life in the series but Hayward is not disappointed at the character being killed off.  “I really do not want to do these shows for 50 weeks a year,” he told TV Week.  “I need to have space to pursue my other interests.”

Briefly…
Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show host Jacki MacDonald (pictured) is about to be seen by millions of American viewers when she takes part in a segment on America’s Funniest Home Video Show.  “It’s going to be very international,” she told TV Week.  “Bob (Saget) is also interviewing the hosts of the other Home Video shows from other countries.”  There are currently 12 different versions of the show around the world.  But MacDonald is not expecting it to lead to any further job offers from the US.  “I don’t think they’d employ me,” she said.  “The English told me that once, when I was over there years ago.  They said, ‘you’re very intelligent and very funny Miss Marsupial, but we don’t want you’.” 

Wheel Of Fortune host John Burgess has recently quit his radio job at Perth radio station 6PM and has ambitions to take on a more serious role.  “You can’t go on being a clown all your life,” he said.  “Before I die I’d like someone to take me seriously, too.  I’ve had this ambition in the back of my mind to read the news on television.  It will take me at least twelve months just practising reading the news.  Seven are being very helpful – I feel this is my network, this is my home.  But if the newsreading comes off, I would probably have to leave Perth and go to Sydney or Melbourne.”

After months of mystery, Australian viewers will this week find out the answer to the question “Who killed Laura Palmer?” in the popular US series Twin Peaks, seen here on Network Ten.

John Laws says…
”In a recent Fast Forward episode, Steve Vizard was responsible for a brilliant send-up of game show host Rob Brough.  In much the same way as he captured and lampooned the Hinch image, Vizard used his talent for impersonation to not only bring Brough to life in physical form, but to satirise him and the Family Feud show in an incredibly funny way.  There are those around who claim that despite the enormous success of his Tonight Live show, Vizard is better suited to the satirical sketch format of Fast Forward.  It’s not a theory that I complete agree with, but judging by some recent Tonight Live shows, there may be a grain of substance.  Not that Vizard’s late-night antics are second-rate television.  Far from it.  The show can – sometimes – positively sparkle, and it makes for a thoroughly entertaining hour.  Yet, on other occasions, it seems to flounder, and never more so than when Vizard is “off the boil”.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, May 18-24):
Saturday:  ABC crosses to Wembley Soccer Stadium for live coverage of the FA Cup Final.

Sunday:  Former Neighbours star Annie Jones makes a guest appearance in comedy series Col’n Carpenter (Ten).  Financial highflyer Rene Rivkin is interviewed by Caroline Jones on ABC’s Compass.  Sunday night movies are Disorganised Crime (Seven), Dangerous Liaisons (Nine) and Missing In Action III (Ten).

Monday:  Ten Eyewitness News is reinstated to a one-hour bulletin, with newsreader Jo Pearson returning to the newsdesk, three years after leaving Ten to go to the Nine Network, alongside David Johnston.  Greg Evans’ game show Blind Date moves from 6.30pm to 5.30pm and is now lead-in to Ten’s revamped news hour.  Noah Taylor and John Jarratt are among the local co-stars to feature in the telemovie Inspector Morse In Australia (Seven).  ABC presents the final episode of The Life And Death Of Sandy Stone.

Tuesday:  Ross Newton, Caroline Gillmer and Suzi Dougherty guest star in GP (ABC).  In Beyond 2000 (Seven), reporter Maxine Gray examines a cholesterol-free butter from New Zealand, and Dr John D’Arcy examines the most comprehensive study of memory ever undertaken.

Wednesday/Thursday:  ABC presents two-part mini-series Half A World Away – focusing on the 1934 London to Melbourne air race – starring Tim Hughes, Caroline Goodall, Jonathan Hyde, Helen Slater, Jim Holt, Josephine Byrnes, Gary Day and Barry Bostwick.

Friday:  Seven crosses to Football Park, Adelaide, for the AFL match between Adelaide Crows and Melbourne.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  18 May 1991.  Southdown Press

1991: May 11-17

Cover: Cher

The Great Ramsay Street Shake-Up!
A massive revamp of the Neighbours cast line-up is about to see eight characters written out with a swag of “young and spunky” newcomers to give the ailing soap a breath of fresh air.  Producers keen to boost the show’s popularity have also enlisted a team of consultants to oversee changes in set design, wardrobe and lighting.  While long-serving cast members Ian Smith (Harold Bishop), Lucinda Cowden (Melanie Pearson), Mark Little (Joe Mangel) and Beth Buchanan (Gemma Ramsay) have chosen to leave the series, others to depart will be Amelia Frid (Cody Willis), Ben Guerens (Toby Mangel), Miranda Fryer (Skye Bishop) and Ian Williams (Adam Willis).  Joining the series will be former Cleo covergirl of the year Rachel Blakely and former models Scott Michaelson and Andrew Williams.  John Holmes, Network Ten’s executive producer of drama, said the show needed a revamp:  “After five or six years, the show was looking very tired.  It definitely slid in 1990.  It went from being a boomer, especially in Melbourne, to getting same ratings the other soaps were getting.  It needed a fresh approach.  We need to get the young and spunkies back in and we’ve started that with Richard Huggett and Melissa Bell.”  But despite the young and colourful revamp headed for the show, Holmes said Neighbours will not become another E Street.  “E Street has a tougher edge, but Neighbours has never been about that.  Neighbours is a light, easygoing show with a strong moral base.  We’re not out to follow those tougher stories.”

Col’n finds true love… with Annie!
Actress and TV Week Logie Award winner Annie Jones has been signed to appear in two episodes of Network Ten’s Col’n Carpenter.  Jones, who won a Logie for her performance in Jackaroo, will play Alison Button, the first true love for Col’n (Kim Gyngell, pictured).  A spokesperson for the show says the actress is “delighted” to be returning to work at Ten, her home for several years when she starred in Neighbours.

Out of the shadows…
NIDA graduate Josephine Byrnes has only been acting professionally for 18 months but is already gaining the title Queen Of The Aussie Mini-Series.  The young actress, who won a Logie Award nomination for her role in last year’s Shadows Of The Heart, has since filmed two more historically-themed mini-series – Half A World Away and Brides Of Christ (both coming to ABC) – but is afraid of becoming typecast.  “I’ve loved the ladies I’ve played,” she told TV Week,  “but I think it’s time I did something contemporary.”

Briefly…
A Country Practice star Matt Day has told TV Week he was ready to move on from the long-running series until producers came up with an offer he couldn’t refuse.  “I’d been with the show two years, which is the longest run I’ve ever done,” he told TV Week.  In trying to keep Day on board, the show’s writers had promised Matt some radical character changes following the departure of co-star Sophie Heathcote, who played his romantic partner for a year.  Also, there was an increase in salary but Day says that money was not a factor.  “Money wasn’t discussed until after the decision to stay was made,” he said.

Burke’s Backyard host Don Burke, whose company recently spent 18 months producing a one-off program about the environment, is unapologetic about his obsession for accuracy, particularly when it comes to the environment – even if it puts him offside with the ‘greenies’ and bureaucrats, and the scientific experts whom he claims are ego or grant-driven.  “Much of what has been put out on the greenhouse effect has been unsubstantiated,” he told TV Week.  “What has put out on recycling has been terribly misleading.  If we lose the public by feeding them scientifically imprecise material, that would be a tragedy.”

E Street star Melissa Tkautz (pictured) has signed a contract to record three singles and an album for Polygram Records.  The 17-year-old will have her first single, titled Read My Lips, debuted on Network Ten’s Video Hits later this month.

John Laws says…
”To the delight – and surprise, I’m sure – of Nine, the first Sale Of The Century shows with the new team (Glenn Ridge and Jo Bailey) attracted healthy ratings.  So healthy, in fact, that in some viewing areas the opposition programs were out-rated.  Glenn and Jo did a workmanlike job in their first nervous week.  Naturally enough, Glenn lacked the polished zest of Tony Barber, but he showed enough to indicate that he may well be capable of assuming the departed supremo’s mantle.  Whether Glenn and Jo can succeed in keeping Sale high in the ratings is going to be one of TV’s most intriguing test-cases.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, May 11-17):
Saturday:  Mark ‘Jacko’ Jackson, A Country Practice star Joyce Jacobs (pictured) and Phil Smythe are contestants on this week’s Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune (Seven).

Sunday:  SBS debuts a new documentary series Through Australia Eyes, a six-part series covering a wide variety of otherwise unrelated material – except they, as the title suggests, focus on life through Australian eyes.  Seven crosses to the Gabba, Brisbane, for the AFL match between Brisbane Bears and St Kilda, followed by highlights of the Richmond versus Collingwood match.  Sunday night movies are Breaking Point (Nine) and Cocoon – The Return (Ten), while Seven presents the debut of mini-series Family Of Spies (to be concluded the following night).  Nine’s late-night line-up includes coverage of the Spanish 500cc Grand Prix and the Monaco Grand Prix.

Monday:  Ten presents a delayed telecast of the international event Save The Kurds – The Simple Truth, a charity concert to benefit the International Red Cross Relief Campaign for Kurdish refugees.  The concert includes performances by MC Hammer, Peter Gabriel, Rod Stewart, Sting, New Kids On The Block, Gloria Estefan and Chris De Burgh.

Tuesday:  In GP (ABC), Sister Julie Winters (Denise Roberts, pictured) feels she’s grown stale at the Ross Street surgery, and re-enters nursing – but discovers that nursing has become more demanding since she last did it.  She also gets embroiled in a nurses’ strike after a patient is endangered by hospital understaffing.  In Beyond 2000 (Seven), Andrew Carroll examines Indonesia’s fledgling aircraft industry and Simon Reeve introduces a cookware that allows omelettes to be cooked in 15 seconds.

Wednesday:  ABC presents Spinning Out, Anne Deveson’s documentary which gives new understanding of the most misunderstood of all mental disorders – schizophrenia.

Thursday:  Maggie Tabberer and Richard Zachariah return with a new series of The Home Show on ABC.  In Chances (Nine), Charlie (Kimberley Davenport) announces she is pregnant – but who is the father-to-be?  Is it scheming Alex (Jeremy Sims) or lovable Ben (Rhys Muldoon)?

Friday:  Some changes starting in appear in the Network Ten schedule launched earlier this year – the 5.30pm game show Let’s Make A Deal appears for the final time, while Star Search moves to the new timeslot of Friday 7.30pm with new host Mike Hammond.  Seven presents a delayed telecast of Friday night AFL – North Melbourne versus Adelaide.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  11 May 1991.  Southdown Press

1990: July 21-27

Hey Sister!
While 18-year-old Beth Buchanan prepares to move into TV’s most famous neighbourhood, her older sister, Simone, is looking forward to moving on from TV’s most famous Aussie family.  After more than five years in the role of Debbie Kelly, there are strong hints that Simone will not be renewing her contract with Hey Dad! beyond September.  And the younger Buchanan is now settling into her new role as Gemma Ramsay in Neighbours, although despite her youth she is already a veteran of the small screen – with stints in Hey Dad!, A Country Practice, Home And Away and the mini-series The Last Frontier.  And the two sisters (pictured) have inevitably copped comparisons to those other famous sisters, Kylie and Dannii Minogue.  “Please don’t compare us to them,” Simone tells TV Week.  “Everyone seems to be asking if we’re the next Kylie and Dannii – we’re not!”

New kids on the beach
Home And Away is about to welcome two new foster children.  Karen and Blake Dean, played by Belinda Jarrett and Les Hill, come into Summer Bay as foster children to Alf and Ailsa Stewart (Ray Meagher and Judy Nunn) after the death of their mother from cancer.  “It’s a dream come true,” Jarrett told TV Week.  “I’m a huge Home And Away fan.  I usually wolf my dinner down so I don’t miss an episode.  It’s amazing to think I’m now a part of the all the goings-on taking place in Summer Bay.”  While Jarrett has had no prior television experience, Hill has had some appearances in the ABC medical drama GP.  “The thing I’m finding most daunting about working on Home And Away is the pace of the production,” he says.  “It’s fast but I’m enjoying the challenge.”

‘In the morning we always wrap our arms around each other’
Val Jellay talks about life after thirty years of marriage to Maurie Fields – a partnership that began in the days of vaudeville and later followed into television when the pair were a hit on the variety show Sunnyside Up, and they’ve rarely been out of work since – with both currently appearing as husband and wife in The Flying Doctors.  Despite the busy and demanding schedules that the industry can demand, the pair have rarely spent more than two days apart.  “We’ve never tired of each other,” Jellay tells TV Week.  “Maurie is easy to live with and has a placid nature.  When we’re doing a scene together, I can stare him in the eyes and the tears just come.  In the morning we always wrap our arms around each other, like it’s our first day.” 

Briefly…
Actor Kim Gyngell, best known as Col’n Carpenter, is set to shatter the image of the “lovable dag” with his role in the new movie, Heaven Tonight, in which he co-stars with John Waters, Rebecca Gilling and Guy Pearce.  Gyngell plays Baz Shultz, a former rock star whose life has been affected by drugs. 

Neighbours’ producers aren’t saying much, but it seems that the show is set to have its most celebrated wedding since Scott and Charlene (Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue), with ‘Bouncer’ and ‘Rosie’ set to become television’s first canine couple.

Half A World Away is a lavish mini-series being produced for ABC for airing next year.  The series is based on the 1934 Great Air Race, in which millionaire “Mac” Robinson put up a fortune in prize money for the fastest plane from London to Melbourne.  The series has an impressive cast including Caroline Goodall, Gosia Dobrowska, Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell, Gary Day, Johnathan Hyde and American actors Barry Bostwick and Helen Slater.

John Laws says…
”Recent audience research figures suggest that comedy and games shows are continuing to win satisfying ratings for all networks.  I guess it’s a sign of our rather desperate financial times that viewers are more and more seeking light relief to escape the pain and problems of everyday life.  There are a number of highly successful shows around right now, and it’s pleasing that local comedies like Hey Dad! are attracting the sort of healthy ratings that make worth while all the effort that goes into them.”

Program Highlights (July 21-27):
Saturday:  ABC presents highlights of the first day’s competition from the 1990 Goodwill Games, being held in Seattle, USA.  ABC will present an hour of highlights in the early evening on each day of competition as well as a further hour later in the night.

Sunday:  Sunday night movies are Overboard (HSV7) and Bull Durham (ATV10).  GTV9 presents the first of a two-part mini-series, Dress Gray, and ABC debuts mini-series Mussolini And I, featuring Bob Hoskins, Anthony Hopkins and Susan Sarandon.

Monday:  Mark Mitchell launches his new comedy series, The Big Time (ATV10), featuring his family in real-life situations while he dreams he is a late-night TV show host.

Tuesday: In Beyond 2000 (HSV7), reporter Amanda Keller visits the US where there has been some success with a vaccine used to treat a similar disease as AIDS.  ATV10 presents a one-hour special edition of Candid Camera On Australia with Tony Murphy.  This week’s GP episode, The Very Long Goodbye, tells the story of a patient with a brain tumour, told he has six months to live, going on a last wild binge – then discovers that the diagnosis was wrong.  The episode guest stars George Spartels.

Wednesday:  Noni Hazlehurst (pictured), Deidre Rubenstein and Tony Barry star in the documentary-drama Breaking Through (ABC), focusing on the real-life case of Cathy Ann Matthews and her frightening and painful childhood.  The physical, emotional and sexual abuse perpetrated by her father was so distressing that she shut it out of her conscious mind for over 40 years.  Hazlehurst also appears in the mini-series The Shiralee, starring Bryan Brown, Rebecca Smart, which begins a re-run on HSV7.

Thursday:  In E Street (ATV10), the wedding between Abby (Chelsea Brown) and Ernie (Vic Rooney) does not go off without a hitch.  Bob (Tony Martin) has a plan to patch things up with Elly (Penny Cook) once and for all.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.         
21 July 1990. Southdown Press.