1991: March 2-8

‘Cut it out, Steve!’
As Tonight Live enters its second year, newsreader Jennifer Keyte has put her foot down and ordered some changes to the show’s news segment which she presents at the start of each program.  Gone is host Steve Vizard’s catchphrase “the newsreader with the mostest”, and also gone is Keyte’s walk to the news desk which attracted wild wolf-whistles and cheers from the studio audience.  The changes have come after Keyte (pictured, with Vizard), who also fronts Seven Nightly News in Melbourne, had some concerns about the credibility of the news presented on the program and was also concerned about some on-air comments by Vizard about her private life.  “I’m a news presenter, therefore I don’t want to be drawn into a situation where I have to give opinions on things or to divulge anything to do with my personal life,” Keyte told TV Week.

Craig’s to become a hero!
Craig McLachlan has been offered a role in the sequel to the mini-series The Heroes which is set to appear on the Seven Network.  Producers of the new project also approached McLachlan’s former Neighbours co-star Jason Donovan to reprise his role from the original The Heroes series, but with his current commitment to West End musical Joseph And His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat it is unlikely he will be available.  The Heroes II is likely to be McLachlan’s only TV appearance this year apart from a two-week stint coming up in Home And Away, a contractual commitment following his recent departure from the series as a regular cast member.

The Bugs Bunny girl hops into a new role
The Bugs Bunny Show host Sophie Lee (pictured) makes her debut in Nine’s The Flying Doctors this week.  Despite some outside criticism of her meteoric rise to fame, the 22-year-old former model is confident she can ‘cut it’ as an actress.  “I’ve been doing bits of acting work for a long time now,” she told TV Week.  “I’ve had my ears open for years looking for good parts.  Just because I got The Bugs Bunny Show didn’t mean I thought, ‘Well I’m fine now’.”

Briefly…
Production is to start in July on the $5.7 million sci-fi series Halfway Around The Galaxy And Turn Left. The 26-episode series is being produced at the Melbourne studios of Crawfords Australia for the Seven Network and German company Kirch Gruppe.  No casting details for the series have been announced as yet.

John Farnham is to lead the list of performers at this year’s TV Week Logie Awards, to be held at Melbourne’s World Congress Centre later this month.  Producer Peter Wynne and choreographer David Atkins are also working on a few other surprises for the show, including a “supergroup” getting together for a one-off Logies performance.

Departing E Street star Warren Jones (pictured) had expected that scriptwriters would write out his character, former policeman Paul Berry, with a quick bullet to the head.  “But they turned it into, maybe, the best scenes my character has ever had.  I was really proud,” Jones told TV Week.

Former A Country Practice and The Flying Doctors star Brett Climo has signed up with ABC’s popular drama GP for a three-week guest stint. 

John Laws says…
”Having had such success with Mother And Son, writer Geoffrey Atherden could easily have rested on his laurels.  But if the first episode of his new series Eggshells is any guide, Atherden looks like he has come up with another triumphant Australian TV sitcom.  Yes, it’s that good.”

Program Highlights (March 2-8):
Saturday:  Seven’s environmental and weather reporter David Smith presents documentary Continent In Crisis for Jennifer Keyte’s World Around Us, looking at the ecological crisis confronting Australia.  Seven then crosses to AFL Park, Waverley, for the 3rd Quarter Final of the Foster’s Cup pre-season competition.  Nine crosses to Jamaica overnight for the second day’s play of the First Test between Australia and West Indies.

Sunday:  SBS’ documentary series My Place, My Land, My People looks at Cunnamulla, just north of the NSW border, the traditional lands of the Kunja tribe and traces their history over the past 200 years.  The Foster’s Cup continues on Seven with the 4th Quarter Final from AFL Park, followed by Nascar-Auscar motor racing from Calder Park, Melbourne.  Sunday night movies are Octopussy (Seven), The Rosary Murders (Nine) and Die Hard (Ten). 

Monday:  Seven’s long-running game show Wheel Of Fortune celebrates its 2000th episode with John Burgess, Adriana Xenides and voice-over man John Deeks presenting highlights from the show’s past.  Burgess, who has hosted the show since 1984, has notched up more than 1000 episodes, while Xenides has not missed a single episode since the show began in July 1981.

Tuesday:  Former The Restless Years star Peter Mochrie guest stars in ABC’s GP.  Actress Nadine Garner makes her comedy debut as an over-the-top groupie who dumps boyfriend Thomas (Steven Jacobs) for his dad, ageing rocker Bobby (Jon English) in Nine’s All Together Now.

Wednesday:  Penne Hackforth-Jones guest stars as an old girlfriend of Martin Kelly (Robert Hughes) in Seven’s Hey Dad!

Thursday:  Sophie Lee makes her debut in Nine’s The Flying Doctors.  In Seven’s Acropolis Now, Memo’s (George Kapiniaris) mother sends an uncle from Greece to encourage Memo to marry – and in sheer desperation he chooses Effie (pictured. Mary Coustas).  In E Street (Ten), the erratic behaviour of troubled former policeman Paul Berry (Warren Jones) comes to a climax when he kidnaps Rachel Patchett (Madison Doyle) and Toni Windsor (Toni Pearen) and locks them away in a hospital room.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  2 March 1991.  Southdown Press.

1991: February 16-22

Private property!
Home And Away star Rebekah Elmaloglou (pictured) is determined to keep her professional and personal lives separate.  Unlike many fellow soap stars, Elmaloglou has refused to talk publicly about her boyfriend of twelve months and the pair have never been photographed together.  “It’s just one of those things I don’t find important to talk about,” the 17-year-old told TV Week.  “My private life is the same as any other girl of my age.  I’ve got my schoolfriends, I’ve got my family, I’ve got my boyfriend.” 

It was 20 years ago today…
Hey Hey It’s Saturday returns to air this week, starting its 20th year.  “The official celebration is in October (the show debuted on 9 October 1971), but we’re out to make this the best year ever of Hey Hey so we’re starting the celebrations early,” host Daryl Somers told TV Week.  This year the show is taking on some changes as Somers and colleague Ernie Carroll take over producing the show after last year’s split from producer Gavan Disney.  “Ernie and I are happier, and I know a lot of the people around us are feeling happier, too,” Somers said.  “I think it’s going to be a very harmonious situation for all concerned this year.”  The year ahead could also see Hey Hey head to London and even Hollywood for some special shows.  Somers is also excited to have new executive producer Jim McKay on board for the show.  McKay was the program manager at GTV9 who originally named the program back in 1971 and hired the 19-year-old Somers for the job of host.  “He came up with the name and paid me $75 a week, that was it!  It’s taken me 20 years to get him back – that’s what he’s on now,” Somers laughed.

‘If it was me, I wouldn’t do it’
Andre Eikmeier (pictured), the 18-year-old who is probably best known to viewers as the pizza delivery boy in Kylie Minogue’s Coca-Cola commercial, has been acting for ten years but is taking on the change from child actor to young adult with a controversial role in ABC’s medical drama GP.  In an episode to air this week, Eikmeier plays the role of student Tony Wood who is suffering from stomach ulcers and the pressure of exams and finds himself under attack from his father who discovers that he has been having a relationship with a man ten years older.  For Eikmeier it was a challenging role to take on.  “It was very hard, because I’d never had any contact with gay people.  I guess I’d been sheltered from it, so I didn’t really know how to approach it.  I gave the part a lot of consideration, and my dad said, ‘Well, it’s up to you – but if it was me, I wouldn’t do it’,” he told TV Week.

Briefly…
Jeff Phillips (pictured), host of Network Ten’s new talent quest series Star Search, says he knows that shows like this can give a young star their big break.  “I was a product of this type of show,” he told TV Week.  “I drove from Perth to Melbourne in my Volkswagen to go on New Faces.  I went on the show on Sunday night, won it, and was immediately invited by Graham Kennedy to be on In Melbourne Tonight and got sudden recognition.  I was only 19 at the time.”

The Flying Doctors star Brett Climo makes his dramatic exit from the series this week as his character, Dr David Ratcliffe, attempts a rescue on a cliff face and finds himself hanging upside down from a safety rope before falling to a ledge below.  “This episode is definitely among the best moments of my career,” Climo told TV Week.

Actress Kaarin Fairfax, best known to viewers as Dolour in The Harp In The South and Poor Man’s Orange, is joining Network Ten comedy Col’n Carpenter as the show’s new female lead following the departure of Vikki Blanche.  The series will also be seen in a new timeslot – Sunday nights at 8.00pm, after The Simpsons – when it returns to screens next month.

Lawrie Masterson’s Sound Off
”On went the VCR for a first look at Chances (featuring Natalie McCurry, pictured), the new Nine Network series so heavily publicised, yet so closely guarded at the same time.  All the pre-publicity had promised adults only fare and, while this was hardly a return to the full frontal days of Number 96 or The Box, it did make it seem worthwhile checking that the little ones were, indeed, just like everyone in the show – in bed.”

Program Highlights (February 16-22):
Saturday:  Daryl Somers and Ossie Ostrich head Hey Hey It’s Saturday’s return for 1991, up against the debut of Ten’s new talent quest series Star Search, hosted by Jeff Phillips.  Seven crosses to AFL Park, Mount Waverley, for the Fosters Cup: St Kilda versus West Coast Eagles.

Sunday:  SBS begins a national screening of the twelve-part documentary series My Place, My Land, My People – a production of Queensland-based regional broadcaster QTV and a winner at the 1990 TV Week Logie Awards for most outstanding achievement by a regional television station – followed by the series return of SBS viewers’ feedback program Hotline.  Sunday night movies are Beverly Hills Cop II (Seven) and Working Girl (Ten).

Monday:  SBS debuts a new weekly music series, MC Tee Vee, and later in the evening Pria Viswalingam hosts the series return of nightly current affairs program Dateline.  Ten presents the movie-length debut of popular US series Twin Peaks.  After the late edition of Ten Eyewitness News, Ten presents US talk show Donahue, with each night’s episode repeated the following afternoon.  Ten’s overnight coverage of the Gulf war continues via CNN.

Tuesday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Bob Hatfield (Gordon Piper) becomes a vegetarian after he is asked to kill six sheep.  Aussie actress Penny Downie (The Box, Prisoner, The Sullivans) stars in the new six-part British series Campaign which debuts on ABC.

Wednesday:  ABC presents 90-minute documentary One Australia?, a study on racism and multiculturalism in Australia and asking whether cohesion in our society can be achieved while maintaining diversity.

Thursday:  Veteran actor George Mallaby (pictured) guest stars in Nine’s drama Chances.  SBS current affairs program Face The Press and sports magazine The Sports Machine return for 1991.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.   16 February 1991. Southdown Press.