How much is that Logie up the Gumtree?

It was only a couple of months ago that a Gold Logie was open for bids on Ebay… before the item was removed from sale and the Award organisers, TV Week, considered legal action.

Now, with the presentation of the 54th annual TV Week Logie Awards just around the corner, the item (pictured) has resurfaced via website Gumtree.

The item for sale on Ebay last year had a starting price of $1000, but despite the item not being a Gold Logie as previously claimed the price tag has skyrocketed to $20,000, although the price is said to be negotiable.

The statuette, believed to date back to the 1960s, is without its wooden base and the identity of the award’s original recipient is not known.  The seller, who bought the Logie at a Camberwell market 15 years ago, is only of the understanding that the award came from someone with connection to Melbourne channel GTV9.

Three years ago a 1975 Logie belonging to Number 96 star Bunney Brooke (pictured), who died in 2000, had sold on Ebay for around $2200.

Meanwhile, TV Week has announced the line-up of presenters who will be handing out brand new Logies to Australia’s most outstanding and most popular TV talent, as judged by the industry and viewers respectively, this Sunday night.

The list of presenters includes Adam Hills, Hamish Blake and Andy Lee, Dave Hughes, Academy Award nominee Jacki Weaver, Gold Logie winner Karl Stefanovic (pictured), Lisa Wilkinson, Shaun Micallef, Rove McManus, Mick Molloy, One Direction, Alex Dimitriades, Kate Ritchie, Shane Jacobson, Gigi Edgley, Julia Morris, Manu Feildel, Chrissie Swan, Lincoln Lewis, former Wiggle Sam Moran, Shelley Craft, Denise Scott, Allison Langdon, Hamish McDonald, Stephen Curry, Essie Davis, Rodger Corser, Tracy Grimshaw, Kerry O’Brien, Don Hany and Georgie Parker.

There will be musical performances from boyband One Direction, Flo Rida and the legendary Tony Bennett.

The Logies will also provide a cross-promotion platform for its new talent contest The Voice with performances by Delta Goodrem and Seal, who are both judges on the new show.

It has been reported in the media that music executive Michael Gudinski is expected to induct Molly Meldrum (pictured) into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame.  Meldrum, best known for his many years on Countdown and Hey Hey It’s Saturday and more recently with the Seven Network and Foxtel, is recovering from injuries sustained from a life-threatening fall at his home before Christmas and is not expected to be present to accept the award.

With Sunday night marking the return of the full-scale ratings battle following the Easter break, the TV Week Logie Awards, which follows the debut of The Voice, will be up against the series return of Seven’s popular Dancing With The Stars and Ten’s screening of the movie Avatar.

The 54th annual TV Week Logie Awards.  Sunday 15 April, 7.30pm. Nine Network.

Source: Bayside Weekly, Herald Sun, Gumtree

TV Week’s front covers of ‘96’

Following Sunday’s tribute to Number 96 and to mark the day of the 40th anniversary of the show’s premiere – it debuted on Sydney’s TEN10 on 13 March, 1972 – here are just some of the TV Week covers to have featured various series cast members over its six year run:

 Abigail (Bev Houghton #1).  TV Week, 27 May 1972.

 Lew Luton (Julian Myer) and Vivienne Garrett (Rose Godolfus). 
TV Week, 24 June 1972.

 Abigail (Bev Houghton) and Joe Hasham (Don Finlayson). 
TV Week, 25 November 1972.

 Lynn Rainbow (Sonia Vansard) and Tom Oliver (Jack Sellars) – married in real-life, not in the series.  TV Week, 5 May 1973.

 Pat McDonald and Ron Shand (Dorrie and Herb Evans). 
TV Week, 26 May 1973.

 Sheila Kennelly and Gordon McDougall (Norma and Les Whittaker).  TV Week, 8 September 1973.

 Vicki Raymond (Bev Houghton #2). 
TV Week, 1 December 1973.

 Pamela Garrick and Jeff Kevin (Patti and Arnold Feather).
TV Week, 1 June 1974.

  Joe Hasham (Don Finlayson).
TV Week, 29 March 1975.

 Joe Hasham (Don Finlayson), Margaret Laurence (Liz Chalmers) and Pamela Gibbons (Prim Primrose).  TV Week, 12 July 1975.

 Justine Saunders (Rhonda Jackson).
TV Week, 17 July 1976.

 Mike Dorsey and Wendy Blacklock
(Reg “Daddy” and Edie “Mummy” MacDonald). 
TV Week, 14 August 1976.

Number 96… in their own words

On Tuesday, 13 March at 8.30pm, it will be 40 years exactly since ‘Australian television lost its virginity’ with the premiere of what would become the mother of all soaps – Number 96.  It was a series that was unashamedly ‘adults only’ and would give a never-before-seen glimpse at life in suburban Sydney, based around the tenants within a fictional apartment block.

The 40th anniversary of the series’ debut is being commemorated by another DVD release – this time containing 16 of the show’s early black-and-white episodes (only around 20 black-and-white episodes are still intact in the archive, the remaining 500+ episodes are destroyed or, at best, unaccounted for) plus a sequence of 16 episodes surrounding the show’s infamous bomb-blast cliff-hanger of September 1975.

To coincide with the 40th anniversary and the DVD launch, here’s a look back to August 1974, when Woman’s Day magazine compiled a special 24-page dossier – Number 96 Confidential – on Australia’s most-watched TV drama, with the show’s creator and head writer David Sale and several of the main characters and actors offering their own insight on the lives depicted on the show that changed the course of Australian television drama.

David Sale (pictured) said that despite its reputation Number 96 is not a “sex and sin show”.  “I would describe it as a ‘gurgle giggle’ show, myself,” he told Woman’s Day.  “I think the main reason people watch 96 is its humour.  About 80 per cent of the show is fun.  People want to laugh.”  Sale also wanted to depict a cross-section of the Australian community.  “I had a couple of migrants, the Sutcliffes, and Aldo, who’s a migrant, and his wife.  And I wanted to put in a couple of homosexuals.  But I did want to get away from the concept of homosexuals being all flapping and effeminacy – the homosexuals in 96 are nice people.  They don’t wear eye-shadow, carry handbags, or hang about public toilets.  I do think the characters of Don (Joe Hasham) and Dudley (Chard Hayward) have done more to put homosexuals in some sort of reasonable light than the whole of the Gay Lib movement.”  Sale also highlighted that as well as breaking down cultural barriers, such as racial or sexual, the show also highlighted various social issues to the audience.  “Lucy (Elisabeth Kirkby) had a lump on her breast.  We were pushing the message that women must go to their doctors for yearly cancer checkups.”  In another storyline, a character ended up addicted to LSD.  “I met two men and their wives at a party soon after that, and they said they were fans of Number 96.  It turned out they were Vice Squad detectives and the both said they’d never stop their daughters from watching 96.  One of them said that his daughter learnt a lot about the result of drug-taking and promiscuity – and he’d much rather she learnt that way, second-hand, than she went out and tried it for herself.”   

On to the show’s characters, starting with Pat McDonald talking about her character, Dorrie Evans who is married to husband Herb (Ron Shand) and becomes known for her various malapropisms:  “Herb and Dorrie owned a little house which they sold to the company of high-rise developers, with the proviso of a life tenancy in the block of flats they planned to erect there.  As such Dorrie decided she was a cut above the normal, so she took on the honorary capacity of “conserge”, and as soon as they’d settled in began her “consergical” duties – which is where the peeking through keyholes ideas came from.  Her other great interest is “pornograffy”, as she has become vice-president of the Purity League and feels it necessary to watch the late movies on television and examine newspapers and magazines for any sign of moral decay.  She feels “pornograffy” is everywhere… and asks herself, ‘where will this all end?’.”

Herb Evans:  “Dorrie and I met at a fireworks display at Circular Quay on a New Year’s Eve.  I can’t remember when it was, but we had our Jubilee Wedding in December 1973 …  Our niece Georgina (Susannah Piggott) came to stay with us.  When we heard she was coming we expected a demure little girl and there came this one, all daggy with beads and blue jeans, and a see-through shirt… and another day I was shaving and she came into the bathroom and dropped her dressing gown, and she had nothing on underneath, and she stepped into the shower, cool as you please.  I never knew where to look …  I’m used to Dorrie, but sometimes she makes things a bit hard.  She tries to run everyone’s lives.  Her stock line is “Why wasn’t I told?” and of course most of the time she hears everything anyway, sooner or later.”

Flo Patterson (Bunney Brooke):  “I used to live in a little house on Paradise Street, but it burnt down and all I had in the world was Mr Perky, my budgerigar, and my dressing-gown.  I didn’t have anywhere to go.  Dorrie and I have been friends for years, so she and Herb took me in.  I get a bit lonely sometimes.  But then I think, well, I’ve got two beaut friends and I’ve got Mr Perky… the cat got burnt when the house burnt down.  Dorrie threw the ashes out and she put garlic salt into the urn, hoping I wouldn’t notice, but I did.  She didn’t throw him out on purpose.”

Joe Hasham (on character Don Finlayson):  “He originally came from the country.  He came to the big smoke, and being a rather brilliant scholar, he studied law – and was considered one of the brilliant young lawyers of the time.  The most shattering thing in his life apart from losing his parents (they were killed in a plane crash) was emotionally losing his friend Bruce Taylor (Paul Weingott) who was living with him at 96 and at the same time having a mad affair with Maggie Cameron (Bettina Welch).  That ended in disaster and Bruce left.  Don was very hurt.  He did have problems with his homosexuality before he came to terms with himself, after having many encounters with many ladies.  He’s slept with them, but he’s never made love to them.  He’s not a wanton tart.  He’s a very decent sort of human being.  He’s just like anybody else.  He just happens to be camp.”

Carol Raye (on character Amanda von Pappenburg):  “Amanda is Don’s aunt.  She hadn’t seen Don since he was a young boy.  She’s an Aussie but she left Australia when she was very young, and married three millionaires – all of whom died.  The last one, Max, was titled, so she’s now a Baroness.  She’s a complete extrovert, and completely shockproof.  Nothing shocks her – homosexuality, love affairs, anything.  As with Flo, of whom she is very fond – she has no comprehension of class distinctions.  Then Max’s money comes through and she inherits $20 million.  So she disperses a lot of largesse around Number 96, pays all Don’s debts and flies off to Europe.”

Johnny Lockwood (on Aldo Godolfus):  “Aldo is a Hungarian, who escaped from Hungary in 1956, and has a daughter, Rose (Vivienne Garrett), who is about 19 or 20.  His wife was supposed to have died not long after he got here.  Aldo has worked very hard and has managed to buy the delicatessen which he runs with his daughter.  His ambition in life is to own his own restaurant, and for a long time his main topic of conversation is this dream.”

Philippa Baker (on Roma Godolfus nee Lubinski):  “She was born in Russia and had been going out with Yuri (Lubinski) before the war.  All of her family, and presumably herself, were in a concentration camp.  She managed to escape and in some way Yuri and she found each other again and got married.  Yuri was a qualified architect in Russia, which meant he couldn’t get a job here because his qualifications were not recognised.  So they started a restaurant – a kosher restaurant.  Then Yuri died and Roma decided to sell the restaurant.  So this awfully nice Hungarian Jewish gentleman called Aldo Godolfus came to see Roma because he wanted to buy it.  But he lost his deposit so she sold the restaurant to somebody else (but) they felt immediate rapport.  Roma had been trying to nudge Aldo into proposing, using all the wiles she could think of, and still he said nothing.  So Roma proposed to him.  They had a lovely wedding.  No, they didn’t.  They ran away to Surfers Paradise and nobody knew they got married, so it wasn’t so lovely.”

Arnold Feather (Jeff Kevin): “I studied at night school and worked during the day at Mrs Lubinski’s restaurant, where I met the people from Number 96.  Then I moved in, and lived with the Sutcliffes.  There have been great traumas.  The first was with Georgina Carter, Mrs Evans’ niece.  She was my first romance.  She was a virgin and was quite keen on her virginity being taken.  We kept trying, but we were always being caught.  My next great love affair was with Robyn Ross.  I was desperately in love with her.  I even went so far as to buy her an engagement ring.  But then I was most mortified and shocked and horrified to find out “she” was a drag queen (Carlotta), and I swore off women for some time after that.”

Norma Whittaker (Sheila Kennelly):  “We’d had a bit of strife at Toorak, because (husband) Les had some chook dung delivered to the place and the other people got upset about that.  So we moved to Sydney, to Number 96, and Les gets a job as a wardsman at the hospital and I get a job in the pub near 96.  We found the flat before we got the jobs… we met this rude old sticky-beak Dorrie Evans, puttin’ on airs and graces all the time.  Our Gary’s in the army.  He came to live with us with his wife.  He married this “Eyetalian” girl he met overseas.  She drank coffee for breakfast and kept cooking all this peculiar “Eyetalian” food with that garlic stuff in it… funny ways, the “Eyetalians” have…. Jack Sellars decided to open this wine bar.  Then this bloke came into the hotel and he took a bit of a shine to me.  He was an artist and he liked large ladies.  Said he wanted to paint a picture of me.  So I got all dressed up in me black dress and me pearls and he painted this picture.  We had this big unveiling in the pub – and there I am, large as life – and the ruddy thing’s starkers!  Jack loved that painting and he put it in the wine bar.  I’m working there and there’s this ruddy great nude piccie up there for always!”

Les Whittaker (Gordon McDougall):  “Of course I’ve always been keen on inventions and improving my mind.  I have many butterflies inside my head but they never seem to settle long enough in one place to sip the nectar of success.  Being a hospital wardsman I first thought I would improve the ambulance service in Paddington, so I invented the Whittaker Radio Controlled Ambulance.  I tried to build a ham radio, which Dorrie called my Devon Ham Radio.  Unfortunately the first day she came to the door when we’d moved in, I opened the door and the radio set exploded and blew the two of us across the hall.  I did have one successful invention.  I invented the Whittaker Wine-o-meter.  It worked in the wine bar for ages.  Then I went on an inventors’ program on a local television channel, and a gentleman in Melbourne took up my invention and started to manufacture it.  But unfortunately I didn’t read the small print of the contract and we found out later that he would have to sell two million units before I would make anything out of it.  So if Les Whittaker lives to mid-2048 we might begin to get some royalties!”

Tom Oliver (on Jack Sellars):  “Jack’s an SP bookie when he first comes in.  A very rough diamond, with a heart of gold.  He’d chop off his right arm to help people.  He’s out to improve himself.  He made money on houses, went into property.  He bought Number 96.  He has improved himself, his manner, dress, habits.  He’s very faithful to one woman – while she’s there.  When the chemist’s husband was killed he bought the lease of the chemist shop, and decided to turn it into a wine bar, which he did, and called it Norma’s Bar.  Norma and Les Whittaker manage it for him.”

Elaine Lee (on Vera Collins):  “She’s been a prostitute.  She was raped by her stepfather in South Africa.  She managed to save her money and got herself to Sydney.  She had no job.  I don’t see her as a standing-on-the-street sort of lady.  I think she went out with men, and they probably bought her dinner and paid her rent for a week or so.  She’s not a tart.  I think she fell on hard times and some rich guys paid the rent every so often.  She dabbled in dress designing and was discovered by Maggie Cameron and set up in a shop.  That blew up over a young man who Vera wasn’t interested in but Maggie was.  Vera had married Harry Collins (Norman Yemm), and they’d been divorced.  On two occasions she took him back.  The first time he nearly raped her, and they set up house again, but that broke up.  The second time he was just insanely jealous, and kept imagining she was involved with all sorts of men, so that broke up too.”

Elisabeth Kirkby (on Lucy Sutcliffe):  “Lucy comes from Salford in Lancashire and has been married to Alf since the war, when he was serving in the British Army.  Alf is the classic example of the complaining, whingeing Pom and his whole aim was to get back to England.  Then Lucy became ill.  She knew she had a lump on her breast but she was too scared to see a doctor because she thought she had cancer and she knew that without her salary they would have no breadwinner.  She was terrified because she thought she’d have to undergo a radical mastectomy, she’d be deformed, to a degree, that her husband would think it was horrible…”

James Elliott (on Alf Sutcliffe):  “Basically Alf if a bit of a rough nut – he’s a knockabout sort of character, not very respectful to his superiors, super self-confident with people he knows.  He had a working class background, he came from Salford, near Manchester.  He met and married Lucy during the war.  Alf is very affectionate towards Lucy, and he loves her very much, although his rough-nut mannerisms might indicate to the contrary.  He’s almost very solidly working-class in his contempt for people of a different class.  In fact he’s very class conscious.  He’s a hard worker but he’s not consistent.  Lucy runs a laundrette.  She’s more consistently employed than Alf.  Alf is continually contemptuous of Australia but secretly he probably loves it here.  When he went back to England he found his friends there had grown away from him. and he’d grown away from them, whereas in Australia he’s grown to love and like the people at 96.  He knows inwardly he’d be out of his depth back in England, but he still loves to sling off at Australia, usually in a way that’s not logically balanced… Alf’s arguments aren’t usually balanced.”

Although only some cast members of the time are profiled in the Woman’s Day special – others that appeared at that stage of the series included Chard Hayward, Mike Dorsey, Wendy Blacklock, Frances Hargreaves, Josephine Knur, Pamela Garrick and Bettina Welch – more than one thousand actors and six thousand extras appeared in the series over its six year run of 1218 episodes.

There have also been three earlier DVD releases of Number 96.  In 2006, to coincide with the 50th year of Australian television, the 1973 movie version and the 1976 special They Said It Wouldn’t Last (which commemorated the show’s 1000th episode) were released on DVD.  This was followed in 2008 by the release of 32 episodes surrounding the ongoing mystery of the ‘pantyhose strangler’ (pictured) who claimed the lives of a number of characters – and then in 2010 the subsequent batch of 32 episodes after the identity of the murderer was revealed.

Number 96:  The Beginning And The Bomb is released by Umbrella Entertainment.

Source: Woman’s Day, 12 August 1974. TV Week, 13 August 1977.

1992: March 1-7

State of shock!
Unlike most young Australian actors, E Street star Bruce Samazan (pictured) is in no hurry to work in the US – in fact he has no plans to ever visit there again.  Making his first trip to the US, staying with friends in Texas during a production break for E Street, Samazan cut short his two-week visit and made a dash back to Sydney, admitting that the place “freaked” him out.  “There’s gang warfare over there that I can’t grab a hold of… it’s chaotic,” he told TV Week.  “It’s totally unnatural for an Australian to go over there and adjust to the fact that if you wear the wrong coloured baseball cap or T-shirt, you might be shot at.”  On one occasion he went to put on a Los Angeles Raiders cap but was advised by his local friend, “Bruce I wouldn’t wear that.  You could get yourself into trouble – you might get shot at”.  Then, two days later, a local newspaper carried the headline ‘Two Youths Shot Dead Outside Nightclub’… for wearing LA Raiders outfits.  “That was pretty scary stuff,” Samazan said.

It’s goodbye to the Valley!
A Country Practice viewers will soon bid farewell to three of the show’s most popular characters.  Gordon Piper (who plays Bob Hatfield), Syd Heylen (Cookie) and Matt Day (Luke) will be making their final appearances on screen in the coming weeks.  For Day, leaving the series has come at the right time.  “The character is now rounded off and I feel he has gone as far as he can for me,” he told TV Week.  “Theatre is the next avenue I wish to explore.  I want to steer clear of TV for a while.”  Showbiz veteran Heylen leaves the show with happy memories.  “I’ve made a lot of good friends,” he said.  “The series kept me before a broad audience, which you don’t get to cover doing live work.  It has been a happy period.”  And although Piper is adamant that he won’t be returning to A Country Practice, he and Heylen (both pictured) will be making a guest appearance in two episodes later in the year in a storyline which sees Cookie return to hospital. 

New doctors set for take-off
The Nine Network drama The Flying Doctors is set for a major revamp as production starts soon on its tenth series.  In a major shake-up for the series, the series will now be based in Broken Hill (the real-life base of the Royal Flying Doctor Service) rather than the fictional Coopers Crossing, and the only familiar cast members making the move to the new location will be husband-and-wife team Maurie Fields and Val Jellay (pictured) and Sophie Lee.  And joining the new-look series will be Simone Buchanan (Hey Dad!), Peter Phelps (who has just returned from the US where he featured in Baywatch), Steve Jacobs (Rose Against The Odds) and Lydia Miller.  The new-look series is scheduled to debut on Nine around mid-year.

Briefly…
Neighbours’ Blakeney twins, Gayle and Gillian, are about to ‘split up’.  Gillian, who plays Caroline Alessi, will be taping her final scenes in the Network Ten series this week.  “While I love the character and I have thoroughly enjoyed myself on the show, I feel it is time to move on as an actor,” she told TV Week.  Meanwhile, Gayle is contracted to the show until July and will then assess her options before making any decision about her future.  But while the pair will no longer be working together on Neighbours, they will be working together again in London next month as they record their next single which is due for release in Australia later this year. 

Sydney’s Botanic Gardens, with views of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, is the location for the latest TV soapie wedding – but it is unlikely to ever appear on Australian screens.  The British TV series Families, which stars Briony Behets (the British-born actress best known for her roles in Aussie dramas Number 96 and The Box), is filmed between Manchester and Sydney… but so far the series is yet to be sold to an Australian network.  The series’ wedding is between Behets’ character Diana Stephens and cafe owner Anton Vaughn (Rhett Walton).

The patchy relationship between the local producers of the Network Ten tabloid current affairs show Hard Copy and Paramount, who own the US-based format, continues.  But executive producer Peter Sutton isn’t concerned as he said there are plenty of other sources for content if the plug is pulled on being able to grab stories from the US version, but concedes that the show may have to change its name – with Fast Copy or Australia’s Hard Copy cited as possibilities.

Actress Melissa Bell (pictured) is currently caught in a battle between Network Ten’s two soapies.  Melbourne-based Neighbours’ producers are keen to renew Bell’s contract when it expires mid-year, but Bell wants to move back to Sydney-based E Street where she once had a brief role – due in part to her current off-screen interstate relationship with the son of E Street producer Forrest Redlich.

Lawrie Masterson: The View From Here
”Fat Cat has been banished from our screens in one of the most profound decisions made in the history of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal.  The tubby tom’s character was deemed “still not clearly defined” and his show was accused of having “still generally poor” direction.  It took 15 years for someone to reach this momentous decision, years in which the lives of whole generations of Australian children must have been corrupted irreparably.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, March 1-7):
Sunday:  Nine crosses to Brisbane for the Benson And Hedges World Cup match between Australia and India.  Seven has motor racing with coverage of the Nascar/Auscar Nationals from Calder Park, Melbourne.  Meanwhile, ABC’s Sunday Afternoon With Peter Ross is back with a collection of arts-themed programming and interviews.  Sunday night movies are Shirley Valentine (Nine), Die Hard 2: Die Harder (Ten) and the Japanese comedy Tampopo (SBS), up against Seven’s debut of mini-series Prime Suspect.

Monday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Luke (Matt Day) and Darcy (Kym Wilson) meet Douglas ‘Simmo’ Simmonds (Richard Moir), a crippled Vietnam pilot who revives Luke’s dreams of flying.  In Neighbours (Ten), an accident puts Helen’s (Anne Haddy) life at risk – while in Mother And Son (ABC), Maggie (Ruth Cracknell) remembers a clock that her late husband Leo gave her on their 25th wedding anniversary as she takes one from the house across the street.

Tuesday:  In GP (ABC), Robert (John McTernan) is acting strangely and decides to be a medico on an Antarctic expedition – until he reveals he has a tragic illness.  Beyond 2000 (Seven) reports on mankind’s most ambitious project yet – human habitation on Mars, while reporter Tracey Curro test drives the world’s first car in a suitcase.

Wednesday:  ABC presents a one-hour special, Cop It Sweet, taking a look at Sydney’s inner-city Redfern Police Station, in an area with a history of clashes between police and Aborigines, making it one of the most controversial police districts in the country.  Nine crosses to the Sydney Cricket Ground for day-night coverage of the Benson And Hedges World Cup match between India and Pakistan.

Thursday:  More World Cup cricket from Sydney on Nine, this time the match between Australia and England.  In Acropolis Now (Seven), Effie (Mary Coustas) arranges a party for Sophie’s (Sheryl Munks) 21st birthday at Vibrations Disco. 

Friday:  Seven presents live coverage of the semi-final of the AFL Foster’s Cup, with commentators Bruce McAvaney, Peter McKenna, Don Scott, Gerard Healy and Bernie Quinlan.  The ARIA Awards (Nine) are telecast for the first time, live from Melbourne’s World Congress Centre, and hosted by Richard Wilkins and Julian Lennon, with appearances by John Farnham, Jimmy Barnes, Jenny Morris, Noiseworks, Diesel, Wendy Matthews, Margaret Urlich, Rockmelons, Sophie Lee, Craig McLachlan, Dannii Minogue and international artists Diana Ross, Rod Stewart and Harry Connick Jnr. 

Saturday:  The Seven Network presents an all-day telethon to raise financial support for the Australian team to compete at the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain.  The Olympathon starts at 7.00am, including special editions of Saturday Disney and Video Smash Hits, followed by live crosses around Australia for interviews with some of Australia’s Olympic hopefuls.  The evening telecast includes a night of entertainment featuring the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Phantom Of The Opera stars Marina Prior and Rob Guest (both pictured with Seven’s Bruce McAvaney), Julie Anthony, Grace Knight, Craig McLachlan, Vanetta Fields, Judith Durham, Simon Gallaher, Don Burrows and Peter Cupples.  The telethon concludes at midnight.  Nine presents all-day coverage of the Benson And Hedges World Cup cricket from Adelaide. 

Source: TV Week (Melbourne edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  29 February 1992.  Southdown Press

1992: January 25-31

Jana: ‘I welcome the challenge’
A Current Affair host Jana Wendt (pictured) talks to TV Week about the changing news and current affairs environment taking place – in particular, the launch of Real Life, produced by her former 60 Minutes boss Gerald Stone, going head-to-head with ACA.  “I think anything that increases the competition is good,” she said.  “It will sharpen our edge and I welcome that.  I’m confident we can deliver.  I don’t want to sound masochistic, but I welcome the challenge.”  Not only will ACA be duelling with Real Life, but it will also have Derryn Hinch’s new Network Ten show at 6.00pm, giving him a half-hour head start on ACA and Real Life for the day’s big stories.  Ten has also re-launched Ten Eyewitness News as a 5.00pm bulletin, and Nine has its own 5.30pm local news programs coming soon in each state.  Asked how she feels about this changing landscape, Wendt said: “We’ll have to wait and find out, but Nine believes there is a market for news at 5.30pm, so perhaps there is at 5.00pm.”

Stan: ‘It’s the only gig in town’
Former ABC reporter Stan Grant (pictured) said that he had been made offers before to change to commercial television but had always knocked them back in loyalty to the national broadcaster, but then the offer to front Seven’s new Real Life came “out of the blue”.  “This offer came along initially as a reporter,” Grant told TV Week.  “Then (producer) Gerald Stone came to me and said, ‘How would you feel about presenting it?’  It basically came out of the blue, and I said, ‘Yes’.  I’d given presenting a bit of thought at the ABC.  I’d piloted a program there.  I’d also read news updates during the Gulf War, but I was committed to Real Life.  This was to me the only gig in town.”  But although Grant will be the front man of the new show, he emphasises that Real Life is a team effort.  “There’ll be a lot of interaction between myself and the other reporters.  You’ll get a sense of a team at work here, as opposed to a presenter and a lot of sort of faceless, nameless reporters.  It’s definitely not the Stan Grant Show, but I think A Current Affair is the Jana Wendt show.”

Kym’s rockin’ role
A Country Practice star Kym Wilson (pictured) has signed on as the new co-host of Seven’s Saturday morning Video Smash Hits.  Wilson replaces Emily Symons who recently left the show after a two-year stint to pursue acting full time, and will be leaving Home And Away later this year.  “It’ll be interesting to meet the people whose music I love,” Wilson told TV Week.  “I’m an avid music listener.  It’s going to be great fun.”  Wilson, who previously starred in Brides Of Christ, will be continuing in her A Country Practice role as Darcy Hudson.  “I just hope people don’t forget about my acting and consider me just a TV personality,” she said.

Briefly…
Andrew Daddo (pictured) is making his return to Australian television in Nine’s new ‘whodunnit’ game show, Cluedo.  Daddo, who has returned from the US after a year with MTV, will join Frank Gallacher, Jane Badler, Nicki Paull, Joy Westmore and Peter Sumner as the principal characters based on the Cluedo board game.  George Mallaby is also tipped to be joining the show, but this has yet to be confirmed.

E Street star Toni Pearen, whose character Toni is the next potential victim of mass-murderer Mr Bad (Vince Martin) in episodes to air this week, says that the serial killer storyline has done wonders for the show’s ratings.  “Every soap has mediocre times and E Street was going through such a period when, all of a sudden, this serial-killer storyline comes along,” she told TV Week.  “I just think it is something that no other soap has done before, so viewers have really taken to it.”  When it is pointed out that in the Seventies, Number 96 shocked the nation with its pantyhose strangler mystery (pictured), she is nothing less than amazed.  “Wow, a pantyhose murderer!  Okay, so I wasn’t around then.  This serial killer thing is new to my generation.”

Actress Tammy MacIntosh (pictured) is looking forward to her new role in the ABC series Police Rescue after a year of setbacks.  After quitting The Flying Doctors in 1990, a collarbone injury saw her withdraw from a role in the $4.5 million film Garbo.  Then a role in feature film It’s Now Or Never, alongside Jason Donovan, came to an abrupt end when the film’s finance fell through.  Things looked better when she signed on for Nine’s Chances, but a controversial incident over a nude scene saw that role short-lived.  “I rang my agent every day for a month to find out if I’d got the Police Rescue part,” she told TV Week.  “When I found out I had the role, I just burst into tears.  I couldn’t believe it.  I feel very lucky about the way things have turned out.”

The Nine Network has announced that Lisa Patrick (pictured) will replace Jacki MacDonald as host of Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show.  “I just feel so privileged,” she said.  “I’ve watched Jacki for years and she always made me laugh.  Now, to go in after her… well, I don’t quite know what to say.” Patrick, 26, was a former model who hit the big time in 1989 with a role in the US sitcom Live In, although the series was axed after ten episodes. 

John Laws says…
”You have to admire the tenacity of the people behind Nine’s The Flying Doctors.  I’ve lost count of the number the times the series has almost crash-landed.  Yet – amazingly – it remains airborne, its continuing survival achieved by switching the route and turning a handful of hapless actors into free-fall sky divers.  But, in television, and especially in the soapies field, survival is the name of the game.  Any actor who joins a soapie realises only too well that he or she could be out on their ear in weeks or months, depending on the acceptance level of their character.  In the latest shake-up, there appears to have been a casting slaughterhouse, with one actor – Sarah Chadwick – already gone and six others, described as playing “favourite” characters, pencilled in for departure.  This is draconian, even by soapie standards.  Crawfords, though, are old hands at the soapie business and the tendency is to believe that they know what they’re doing.  In the case of The Flying Doctors, let’s hope so, because it has been around a long time, providing employment for hundreds of people, and enjoyment by millions.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, January 25-31):
Saturday:  Saturday afternoon sport includes tennis (the Women’s Singles Final for the Australian Open) on Seven, test cricket on Nine and golf followed by lawn bowls on ABC. 

Sunday: Australia Day is dominated largely by sport – more golf on ABC, more cricket on Nine, and the Men’s Singles Final of the Australian Open on Seven.  ABC presents the Australia Day Address by the Governor-General just before the 7.00pm news.  Sunday night movies are The Fremantle Conspiracy (Seven), City Heat (Nine) and Stealing Heaven (Ten), up against soccer (Australia versus Sweden) on SBS, and ABC’s tribute to conductor, the late Stuart Challender on Sunday Stereo Special.

Monday:  ABC crosses to Minnesota, USA, for live coverage of the NFL XXVI Superbowl, hosted by Don Lane.  Seven’s morning news program Eleven AM returns for the new year, as does ABC’s evening current affairs program The 7.30 Report.

Tuesday:  Beyond 2000 (Seven) returns, with Simon Reeve reporting on Jamaica’s solution to pollution from bauxite mining.  Amanda Keller takes a ride on a turbo swing, and Bryan Smith discovers growing food in space is a tricky business.

Wednesday:  In Home And Away (Seven), Sally’s (Kate Ritchie) first day at high school does not go well. 

Thursday:  In E Street (Ten), an anxious neighbourhood awaits news on Toni (Toni Pearen, pictured), who is missing and has found herself trapped in dense bush and tied to her car bumper by serial killer Mr Bad (Vince Martin).

Friday:  Blackout (ABC) looks at the topics of assimilation, adoption and sexual abuse in the Aboriginal community, and how these circumstances have prompted the creation of addictive personalities.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  25 January 1992.  Southdown Press