TV Week Logie Awards: 10 years ago

All Saints star Georgie Parker was awarded the Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality on Australian Television at the 44th annual TV Week Logie Awards, held at Melbourne’s Crown Entertainment Complex on Sunday, 28 April 2002, and televised on the Nine Network.

It was Parker’s second Gold Logie, having also won the publicly-voted award the previous year.  She was presented with the award by Good Morning Australia host and four-time Gold Logie winner Bert Newton.

“This is a great personal thing for me, but it always reflects back to the show,” Parker told TV Week.  “Winning the Gold is exciting and weird at the same time.  I don’t really make myself accessible as a personality, so it’s interesting to get an award for Most Popular Personality.”

Her fellow nominees for the Gold Logie were Rove McManus (Rove Live), Ada Nicodemou (Home And Away), Libby Tanner (All Saints) and John Wood (Blue Heelers).

Comedian Wendy Harmer (pictured) was the host of the evening – the first female to ever host the Logies presentation solo – but as a number of other Logies hosts have found, it is one of the toughest gigs in television.  Reviews of Harmer’s performance were harsh to say the least, but even the host herself later accepted that it was not her finest work, as she told The Age in 2010:

''One of the things that happened to me was that I'd been doing radio in Sydney for so long that when I came down to talk to an audience who are in Melbourne doing TV, they basically said, 'What does she know about what we're doing?' And fair enough, in retrospect.''

''And here's the interesting dilemma. Where do you learn to do something like that? You only learn it in the doing of it.''

''Some of the advice I got from the producers was really bad. The funny part about it is that I think I would now know how to do it.''

As well as Parker’s Gold Logie it was a big year for All Saints, with the show also winning two Silver Logies – one for Most Popular Program and the other for Libby Tanner as Most Popular Actress.

After more than twenty years on television, dating back to classic soaps The Restless Years and Sons And Daughters, actor Peter Phelps from Stingers (Nine) collected the Logie the Most Popular Actor. “This is just fantastic… totally unexpected,” he told TV Week. “The Logie means people respect your work and that’s really the best thing you can possibly have as an actor.”

Network Ten’s drama series The Secret Life Of Us (cast pictured) also scored well with two Logies to its credit – Most Outstanding Drama Series and for Deborah Mailman as Most Outstanding Actress.  And with the Big Brother craze at the height of its popularity, the Network Ten show took out the Logie for Most Popular Reality Program.  As Big Brother conducted its live eviction shows on Sunday nights, the show’s host Gretel Killeen accepted the award via a live cross to the Big Brother set on the Gold Coast.

In accepting Rove Live’s award for Most Popular Light Entertainment Program, host and producer Rove McManus (pictured) dedicated the award to his “partner in life and partner in crime”, actor and TV presenter Belinda Emmett. 

Seven’s current affairs program Today Tonight had finally scored its first Logie for Most Popular Public Affairs Program – a category that its main rival A Current Affair had dominated since the category was launched in 1989, having lost out only once to Today Tonight’s predecessor Real Life.  “It’s testament to the fact that we’ve plugged away for so many years,” host Naomi Robson said.  “All the hard work has paid off.  I want to thank Seven for sticking with us.  There was a point a few years back where people were starting to say, ‘Are they going to make it?’ But here we are.”

Nine Network host Eddie McGuire (pictured) had his two shows, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and the AFL-based The Footy Show, win Most Popular Game Show and Most Popular Sports Program respectively. 

For SBS current affairs program Dateline it was a double celebration, with the show winning two awards for Most Outstanding Special Report In A Current Affairs Program.  Two stories, The Dirty War and See No Evil, were equal winners in the industry-voted category. 

ABC reporter Geoff Thompson was awarded Most Outstanding News Reporter and ABC News won Most Outstanding News Coverage for its reporting of events surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.

Veteran television journalist, producer and presenter Mike Willesee was inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame.  He was presented the award by his brother, fellow journalist Terry Willesee.

Adding to the glamour of Logies night in 2002 were performances by Colombian pop star Shakira, the legendary Sir Elton John and US trio Destiny’s Child.

Other international guests on the night included The Bold And The Beautiful star Ronn Moss and Frankie Muniz from sitcom Malcolm In The Middle.

Publicly-voted Awards:

Gold Logie – Most Popular Personality On Australian Television: Georgie Parker

Silver Logie – Most Popular Program: All Saints (Seven)
Silver Logie – Most Popular Actor: Peter Phelps (Stingers, Nine)
Silver Logie – Most Popular Actress: Libby Tanner (All Saints, Seven)

Most Popular New Male Talent: Ditch Davey (Blue Heelers, Seven)
Most Popular New Female Talent: Lisa Chappell (pictured) (McLeod’s Daughters, Nine)
Most Popular Lifestyle Program: Backyard Blitz (Nine)
Most Popular Light Entertainment Program: Rove Live (Ten)
Most Popular Reality Program: Big Brother (Ten)
Most Popular Game Show: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (Nine)
Most Popular Sports Program: The Footy Show – AFL (Nine)
Most Popular Public Affairs Program: Today Tonight (Seven)

Industry-voted Awards:

TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall Of Fame: Mike Willesee (pictured)

Most Outstanding Actor: William McInnes (My Brother Jack, Ten)
Most Outstanding Actress: Deborah Mailman (The Secret Life Of Us, Ten)
Most Outstanding Drama Series: The Secret Life Of Us (Ten)
Most Outstanding Mini-Series/Telemovie: Changi (ABC)
Most Outstanding Children’s Program: Round The Twist (ABC)
Most Outstanding Comedy Program:  The Micallef Pogram (ABC)
Most Outstanding Sports Coverage: Bledisloe Cup (Seven)
Most Outstanding News Reporter: Geoff Thompson (ABC)
Most Outstanding News Coverage: ABC News
Most Outstanding Special Report In A Public Affairs Program: “The Dirty War” (Dateline, SBS) and “See No Evil” (Dateline, SBS).
Most Outstanding Documentary/Series: Australians At War (ABC)

Source: TV Week, 27 April 2002.  TV Week, 11 May 2002. The Age, 1 April 2010.

Play Schooling for 45 years

Forty five years is probably a bit old to be playing horsey, reading storybooks or having fun with cardboard boxes and milk cartons – but ABC’s Play School is proud to be doing so as it reaches its 45th anniversary this week.

The Australian series of Play School launched at 10.05am on Monday, 18 July 1966.  It came after the broadcaster had been screening the English series of the same name for the previous two months and had replaced the long-running afternoon program Kindergarten Playtime.

In December 1967 an afternoon screening of Play School was added to ABC’s schedule.

Among the initial line-up of presenters on Play School were actors including Anne Haddy (pictured, above right) and Patsy King.  Also in the early cast was kindergarten teacher Ann Stroh, a former presenter on the Kindergarten Of The Air radio series as well as Kindergarten Playtime, and actors Peter Drake and Evan Dunstan.

Play School went on to feature many familiar faces in the decades that followed – including Alister Smart, Diane Dorgan, Lorraine Bayly, John Hamblin, Janet Kingsbury, Kerry Francis, Don Spencer, Peter Sumner, Colin Friels, Philip Quast, George Spartels, John Waters, Noni Hazlehurst, Trisha Goddard, Donald McDonald and more recently Deborah Mailman, Jay Laga’aia, Andrew McFarlane, Justine Clarke, Alex Papps, Rhys Muldoon, Brooke Satchwell, Hugh Sheridan, Jolene Anderson, Georgie Parker and Matt Passmore.

And this month two new presenters joined the team – Rachael Coopes (pictured) and Jonny Pasvolsky.

Play School’s longest-serving presenter would have to be Benita Collings, with more than 30 years and 400 episodes to her credit.  In 1996 she told TV Week of some of the challenges that came with the program and, in particular, working with animals:

“I had a baby goat, a kid, on my knee, and it was fine during rehearsal.  But during the second-last shot in the filming, I felt a wet warmth spreading.  I knew that in that last shot I’d be standing so I said, ‘I think he’s a bit frightened.  He’s just wet himself’.  Well, in the next shot I was standing up with a huge wet spot, and the crew were killing themselves laughing.”

There was also the time when an octopus died in its tank just minutes before making its TV debut.  “We had to swish the water around to make it look alive,” she said.

Play School is one of only three programs to have been inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall Of Fame (Four Corners and Neighbours are the other two).

Play School screens weekdays at 9.30am and 4.30pm on ABC2 and at 3.00pm on ABC1.

Pictured:  Celebrating Play School's 25th anniversary in 1991 – from top left, Janet Kingsbury (with Hamble), Donald McDonald (with Jemima), Benita Collings (with Big Ted), John Waters (with one of the Bananas in Pyjamas) and, in front, Trisha Goddard (with Humpty) and Noni Hazlehurst (with Little Ted).

… and celebrating this week’s 45th anniversary milestone, from top left, Andrew McFarlane, Don Spencer, Benita Collings, (front row) Simon Burke, Lorraine Bayly, Karen Pang, John Hamblin, John Waters and Janet Kingsbury.

Source: TV Times, 20 July 1966.  TV Week, 13 July 1991.  TV Week, 6 July 1996. Wikipedia.

Online revival for classic TV fare

NineMSN’s catch-up TV website, FIXPlay, is set to expand its program offerings to include a back catalogue of classic TV titles – including family favourites like Hey Hey It’s Saturday, Skippy The Bush Kangaroo and Thunderbirds.

The website, launched only six weeks ago, is reported to have already clocked up its one millionth visitor with the site’s most popular program being the Nine Network series Underbelly 3: The Golden Mile.  Other popular programs on the video-on-demand website include Sea Patrol, the US sci-fi series V and former Nine series McLeod’s Daughters.

The Seven Network has its own online TV site, Plus7, and ABC has iView, but FIXPlay claims to be the first to offer a back catalogue of classic programming.

Source: Herald Sun