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.

Aussie TV classics on 7TWO – including an ABC favourite

Although the Seven Network’s digital channel 7TWO tends to feature a line-up heavy in classic British fare of drama, comedy and lifestyle shows, the channel manages to squeeze in some classic Australian content.

With its coverage of the minor tennis tournaments now out of the way – and the Australian Open about to start on the main Seven channel – 7TWO from Monday will resume screening classic soap Sons And Daughters and early episodes of Home And Away in their morning timeslots.

From Monday afternoon, 16 January, 7TWO will also roll-out two more vintage classics.  Young Ramsay, a family drama that ran from 1977 to 1980 starring John Hargreaves (pictured with co-star Barbara Llewellyn) as a country vet, and Five Mile Creek, a period drama set in the early gold rush days of Australia that featured Liz Burch, Gus Mercurio, Michael Caton and a young Nicole Kidman.

Although Young Ramsay is being played out from episode one, Five Mile Creek is being resumed from season three as it had a brief run of episodes on 7TWO last month.

Both dramas were originally screened on Seven and produced by Crawford Productions, though Five Mile Creek was a co-production with the American Disney Channel in the early-‘80s and gained a loyal following in the US.

From Friday, 20 January, 7TWO begins a re-run of one of the most popular dramas to come from the ABC – Seachange.

Seachange told the story of city lawyer Laura Gibson (Sigrid Thornton) who after a string of personal crises adopts a change of lifestyle and moves her family to the fictional seaside town of Pearl Bay, hoping for a more peaceful and less dramatic existence as a local magistrate but finding herself immersed in a town of somewhat eccentric characters.

Although Thornton played the central character in Seachange, the series featured a strong supporting cast of veteran performers and new talent, including John Howard, Kerry Armstrong, David Wenham (pictured with Thornton), William McInnes, Jill Forster, Kevin Harrington, Fiona Corke, Tom Long, Alan Cassell, Shaun Micallef and Mark Mitchell.

The series, produced by Artist Services (best known for producing Fast Forward), delivered high ratings for ABC in the competitive 7.30pm Sunday timeslot and its popularity led to the initial batch of thirteen episodes in 1998 being followed by another in 1999 and a third in 2000. 

Over its three-year run Seachange collected nine TV Week Logies – including three for Most Outstanding Drama Series – and three AFI awards.

The series has been repeated on a number of occasions on ABC but this is its first airing on a commercial channel.

Other ABC titles to have featured on 7TWO since its inception are Mother And Son and Barry Humphries’ Flashbacks.

Young Ramsay and Five Mile Creek, weekdays from 12.00pm, starting 16 January.  Seachange, Fridays 7.30pm, starting 20 January.  7TWO.

Source: Five Mile Creek, Seachange, Australian Television Information Archive

Obituary: Carl Bleazby

Actor Carl Bleazby, best known from the long-running ABC series Bellbird, died late last month at the age of 95.

Born in Melbourne in 1916, Bleazby was a radio announcer and actor at Melbourne station 3XY when he enlisted at the break out of World War II in 1939.  He served with the AIF in the Middle East for two-and-a-half years and rose to the rank of captain, but when his radio background was discovered he was transferred to broadcasting duties for the AIF at Radio Jerusalem.

In 1945 he returned to 3XY and furthered his acting career, leading to roles in early TV drama productions including Seagulls Over Sorrento, Consider Your Verdict and Homicide.  In 1967 he was cast as Col. Jim Emerson in ABC’s Bellbird.  It was his first ongoing TV role, but it was a series that he didn’t give much of a chance.  “I gave it about three months,” he told TV Times in 1974.  “It was surprising to me at the time that it took off the way it did but it has developed a lot since then.  I think the very ordinariness of the people helped viewers identify with them and helped its early success.”

Despite the ongoing commitment to Bellbird, production breaks allowed him to make guest appearances in other dramas such as Ryan, Hunter, Matlock Police, The Long Arm, Division 4 and Power Without Glory.

After Bellbird wound up in 1977, he made guest appearances in Skyways, Sons And Daughters, Prisoner, The Flying Doctors and Home And Away.  He also starred in films Country Town (the movie spin-off from Bellbird) and Annie’s Coming Out.

Carl Bleazby died peacefully in a nursing home in Killara, NSW.

Source: TV Times, 18 March 1972.  TV Times, 23 February 1974.  IMDB.  Radio Heritage.  TV Tonight.

1991: August 31-September 6

Steve’s fast women!
Ask Steve Vizard about “his girls”, Fast Forward comediennes Gina Riley, Marg Downey, Magda Szubanski and Jane Turner (pictured as their Fast Forward alter egos Kerri-Anne Kennel, the SBS lady, Pixie Anne Wheatley and Sveta), and all you’ll hear is praise… well, almost.  “Frankly, if I can come clean, I carry the lot of them.  I’m the talent,” he says, with the trademark Vizard modesty.  “Take away their incredible acting ability, their comedic skills, their looks and their personalities, and they’re nothing… these girls are nothing!” 

Angry network dumps Rowena!
Gold Logie winner Rowena Wallace (pictured) has sparked a furore with the producers of Home And Away after making comments to a newspaper that derided her upcoming role in the Seven Network soap.  Wallace, who won the Gold Logie for her role as nasty Patricia Hamilton in Sons And Daughters, was cast to play Julia Bowman, the mother of a young girl dying of leukaemia in a storyline to air on Home And Away early next year.  But in a story published by Sydney’s Telegraph Mirror, Wallace was less than enthused about the role.  “I’m playing somebody’s mother.  It doesn’t really matter whose mother, does it?  She’s dying of leukaemia and I’m there crying a lot, I suppose.  I can see it now,” she told the paper.  “But I’m doing Home And Away for the money.  It’s a nice little earner until Christmas, and then I can go off and do the World Vision thing, you see.”  Although there is a signed contract for Wallace’s upcoming role, Seven has advised her management that her services are no longer required and the two parties are currently negotiating an outcome.  But a spokesperson for Seven has told TV Week, “the role is being re-cast and Rowena will not be doing it.”

E Street wipeout!
A major cast upheaval is headed for Network Ten’s E Street – with four cast members being written out, two former cast members returning, and question marks over three others.  By the end of the year cast members Joan Sydney, Graham Harvey, Julieanne Newbould (pictured) and teenager Daniel Knight will be gone.  Producer Forrest Redlich is currently negotiating with Marcus Graham, Alyssa-Jane Cook and Kate Raison, whose contracts are up for renewal.  “It’s a pretty good bet Marcus will be out.  I’m talking to him about another project,” Redlich told TV Week.  “If Marcus, Kate and A-J go, they’ll be on air until March.”  Meanwhile, Vic Rooney and Kelley Abbey will return to the series, and Diane Craig will take over the role of Dr Elly Fielding from former cast member Penny Cook.

Briefly…
Irish actress Brenda Fricker (pictured) has told TV Week that she was on the verge of collapse while filming the ABC mini-series Brides Of Christ, with long hours in a nun’s habit in temperatures of up to 40 degrees.  “The heat killed me and with the humidity I just couldn’t breathe,” she said.  “I don’t like heat and four months was too long away from home.  Although they did everything to make me feel at home at the place I was staying, it wasn’t home.  I also got very ill.  I went to a doctor and he said I was suffering from chronic fatigue.  He said that I needed a long break.  He said I would probably ignore his advice but, if I did, I would end up in hospital.”

Bert Newton and John Blackman have spoken to TV Week about what has been a frustrating year for both of them in terms of radio.  It is a year since Blackman and Wilbur Wilde were dumped from 3UZ’s breakfast program, and Newton (pictured) has reflected on a year that saw his failed attempt to launch an entertainment-based format on 3AK as well as an unsuccessful bid for the licence of 3XY.  “Radio is dead for me in this town at present,” Newton said.  “I’ve done my best to pick it up, but I feel I have run my race.”  Meanwhile, Blackman has had some discussions with KZFM but not confident of any return to radio in the short term.  “The phone is still deadly silent,” he said.  “Radio’s the thing that’s in my blood, and it’s terribly frustrating for me not to be a part of it.”

Kate Fitzpatrick (pictured) is soon to make a guest appearance in Nine’s Chances as a former brothel madam involved in the untimely death of a prominent figure.  “She’s a great character and introducing guest stars is a good way for the show to go,” she said.

John Laws says…
”The idea of ‘resting’ from his late-night show and installing temporary replacements is something Steve Vizard has perfected this year.  The star of Seven’s Tonight Live is sometimes missing from the limelight and replaced by various personalities, some of whom have appeared before as his guests.  Vizard’s recent stand-in host, the British comedian and comedy writer Ben Elton, made such a marvellous fist of the job that I dare say there were many viewers wishing he could be around all year.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, August 31-September 6):
Saturday:  The Choirboys and The Cockroaches are guest performers on this week’s Hey Hey It’s Saturday (Nine).

Sunday:  Sunday night movies are The Name Of The Rose (Seven) and Old Gringo (Nine) up against Ten’s re-run of mini-series Come In Spinner, a series originally aired on ABC.

Monday:  In Col’n Carpenter (Ten), Colin (Kim Gyngell) is jailed for a crime he didn’t commit and fights to prove his innocence.  In A Country Practice (Seven), Kate (Michelle Pettigrove) is caught in the middle of old rivalries between Harry (Andrew Blackman) and his brother Rick (John Adam).

Tuesday:  Gary Sweet (pictured with Rebecca Gibney) guest stars in All Together Now (Nine), playing the role of a sleazy fashion buyer.  Beyond 2000 (Seven) reports on the controversial abortion drug RU486, and a device which could enable us to control our dreams.  Henri Szeps and Miles Buchanan guest star in GP (ABC).

Wednesday:  ABC debuts mini-series Brides Of Christ, a six-part series set in Australia during a decade of radical upheaval in our society and in the Catholic Church, starring Josephine Byrnes, Kym Wilson, Lisa Hensley, Brenda Fricker and Naomi Watts.

Thursday:  In The Flying Doctors (Nine), rumours are sparked in Coopers Crossing when Guy (David Reyne) and Jackie (Nikki Coghill) spend the night alone after being stranded in a desolate Outback hut.

Friday:  Movie host Bill Collins is the celebrity guest on this week’s Burke’s Backyard (Seven).

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  31 August 1991.  Southdown Press

1991: August 10-16

Lucy turns nasty… very nasty!
A bitter custody battle is set to show A Country Practice’s Lucy Tyler (Georgie Parker, pictured) in a disturbing new light.  The turnaround in her character has even shocked Parker herself.  In recent episodes, Lucy and husband Matt (John Tarrant) have settled into foster-parenthood with their child, Jason (Sam Boggs).  Now, when Jason’s mother, played by Lisa Hensley, returns to collect him after winning custody through the courts, Lucy refuses to give the child up. “It’s a dimension to Lucy that nobody has seen before,” Parker tells TV Week.  “She turns nasty, very nasty.”

Soap wars!
A war is brewing behind the scenes between rival soaps Home And Away (Seven) and Neighbours (Ten).  TV Week sources say that Neighbours producers have been trying to poach some of the more popular Home And Away stars.  “They have been secretly offering contracts to try and get some cast to leave Home And Away and move to Neighbours,” one source said.  “One major cast member was formally approached.  They are trying to do what Seven did when Craig McLachlan swapped networks (from Neighbours to Home And Away).”  It is believed that Ten also tried to sign up new Home And Away cast member Alistair MacDougall, but Home And Away have since secured him with a two-year contract.  Meanwhile, one former Neighbours cast member, Richard Norton, has joined Home And Away with a two-year contract.

Skippy’s making a comeback… and the new Sonny is a daddy!
The Nine Network has commissioned 26 episodes for a Nineties version of the classic TV series Skippy The Bush Kangaroo.  The original series, which ran for 91 episodes and was syndicated around the world, featured child actor Gary Pankhurst as park ranger’s son Sonny Hammond.  In the Nineties version, Sonny is grown up, a widower with two children, and running his own animal park in Queensland.  Andrew Clarke (pictured), former star of Sons And Daughters, Anzacs, Sword Of Honour and Flair, has signed on for the role of Sonny Hammond.  Filming of the new series is due to start at the Warner Bros studios on the Gold Coast in the next few weeks and the series will go to air next year.

Briefly…
Neighbours is welcoming two new cast members as the long-running series celebrates its 1500th episode.  Former Cleo Covergirl of the Year Rachel Blakely and actor Scott Michaelson join the series as Gaby and Brad Willis, daughter and son of Doug and Pam Willis (Terence Donovan and Sue Jones).  Despite his new role, Michaelson jokes that he is an “old hand” at Neighbours.  “I was first on as an extra when it was on the Seven Network.  Then about four years ago, I had a small part as one of the school kids,” he said.

As the Nine Network’s 60 Minutes approaches its 500th edition, reporter Mike Munro is asked about some of the women he’s interviewed over the years.  His favourite?  “Katharine Hepburn, without a doubt.”  The hardest to get to was Madonna.  “The string of entourage was incredible,” he told TV Week.  “Hepburn had an assistant and a maid.  Madonna had six bodyguards, a personal assistant and four public relations people.”

When former Prisoner star Sheila Florance went into hospital for her fifth cancer operation in June, most people – including Florance herself – thought it would be the last time they saw her.  But she has come out of the operation and celebrated her 75th birthday with friends and former Prisoner co-stars.  Her birthday also became a double celebration, as she has also been nominated for an AFI Award for her recent performance in the film A Woman’s Tale.

John Laws says…
”I’ve been a bit perplexed at how Peter Couchman’s program – ostensibly established to canvass Australian issues, otherwise why the name Couchman Over Australia – has seen fit to travel overseas to bring us its talkfests.  I can recall Couchman and his considerable entourage turning up in various countries, including Turkey, New Zealand and some others.  Has it all been worthwhile?  Do we really need a taxpayer-funded Australian TV personality to travel the world organising talk-ins about problems that affect countries thousands of kilometres away from Australia?  In critical economic times – as we now face – all organisations, private and public, have to tighten the purse-strings and in the case of the ABC there has to be a realisation of this essential truth to business life.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, August 10-16):
Saturday:  Ten debuts a new children’s series, Kelly, about a smarter than average police dog, starring Gil Tucker and Alexander Kemp.  Ian Moss, James Freud and Martin Plaza are guest stars on Hey Hey It’s Saturday (Nine).

Sunday:  ABC presents live coverage of the 21st annual City To Surf road race from Sydney. 60 Minutes (Nine) celebrates its 500th edition.  Sunday night movies are Dead Poets Society (Seven), Lethal Weapon II (Nine) and Major League (Ten).

Monday: Former Neighbours star Guy Pearce guest stars in Col’n Carpenter (Ten).

Tuesday:  Beyond 2000 (Seven) reports on a team in Sydney that has developed a new way to monitor the heart that goes one step further than the ECG.

Thursday:  In Embassy (ABC), a Ragaani mail-order-bride is murdered by her Australian husband.  In response, Mahmoud (Joseph Spano) orders that no passports are to be issued to Ragaani women.

Friday:  Bathmat-turned-celebrity Agro is an unlikely guest on this week’s Burke’s Backyard (Nine).

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  10 August 1991.  Southdown Press

1991: June 22-28

Making faces
Imitating the stars is a challenge that Fast Forward’s Gina Riley relishes – and even though the send ups are far from flattering, most of her “victims” love them.  The latest star to be sent up by Riley – Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show host Jacki MacDonald – is far from being offended.  “I’m flattered, not insulted,” MacDonald told TV Week.  “I think my ratings will probably increase now.  Everyone in the world watches Fast Forward, so I’m getting double exposure.  And there’s an advantage.  If I have to take a sickie, she can fill in for me!” But for Riley, despite the physical similarities with the video show host, the role was a challenge.  “I found her voice really very hard.  I thought it would be easy because it’s high… I had to watch hours and hours of tape to get it right,” she said.  And one of Riley’s celebrity send-ups is glamorous TV host Kerri-Anne Kennel, based on Good Morning Australia co-host Kerri-Anne Kennerley.  "I hope she likes it.  The name is hardly flattering I know, but it was the obvious one,” Riley said of the Kennel character.  And it seems Kennerley is a fan:  “I think Gina is hilarious and we all know that imitation is the highest form of flattery.  I think she’s terrific.”

Hey Hey it’s Hollywood!
Hey Hey It’s Saturday’s recent special from the newly-opened Warner Bros Movie World has won praise from visiting US television executives, with host and co-producer Daryl Somers invited to take the program to Hollywood.  “They told me they have Johnny Carson and David Letterman in America, but nothing at all like this,” Somers told TV Week.  “They thought it was a warm sort of show, with a genuine feeling of fun and camaraderie.  They couldn’t believe we do 40 a year.”  Hollywood’s Burbank Studios are expected to host the show in October.  Meanwhile, Somers and partner Ernie Carroll have been continuing plans for a London-based special later this year, and Hey Hey It’s Saturday has also been picked up for screening in New Zealand on TVNZ’s Channel 2.

Mix ‘n match!
Neighbours twins Gayle and Gillian Blakeney have become the show’s latest pop stars with their single All Mixed Up being released in Australia and the UK this week.  The new single was written and produced by English hit-makers Stock, Aitken and Waterman – the same team who created pop stardom for Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan. 

Briefly…
TV Week Gold Logie winner Craig McLachlan is set to star on US network television with a role in an upcoming ABC network telemovie, The Savage Sea.  The production will be filmed entirely in Australia and also stars Ali MacGraw and Robert Urich.

Sixties pop idol and former Sons And Daughters star Normie Rowe is returning to television as a presenter on Network Ten’s weekly magazine program The New Bricks And Mortar.

Former Hey Dad! star Simone Buchanan has been cast in her first dramatic role since leaving the long-running sitcom.  She will be guest starring in A Country Practice as an agoraphobic rape victim.

John Laws says…
”Spin-off TV series, like governments, work only some of the time.  That’s why it’s always a major gamble to attempt to capitalise on a successful show by doing another one based on one or more of the characters.  Hampton Court is a spin-off in that it features the Betty Wilson (Julie McGregor) character from the Hey Dad! series.  It deserves to succeed.  The first few episodes, without being spectacular, were funny and enjoyable.  It reminds me very much about the old British series Man About The House, though there isn’t the same concentration on the so-called “naughtiness” of a flat shared by both sexes.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, June 22-28):
Saturday:  This weeks guests on Hey Hey It’s Saturday (Nine) include the Hoodoo Gurus, Richard Pleasance and The Fabulous Sounds Of The Supremes.

Sunday:  Radio broadcaster Neil Mitchell launches his own weekly current affairs program, Mitchell On Sunday, screening at 5.00pm on Ten leading in to Ten Eyewitness News.  Sunday night movies are Running Scared (Seven) and Dominick And Eugene (Ten), with Nine screening the first of two-part mini-series An Inconvenient Woman.

Monday:  In A Country Practice (Seven), Lucy (Georgie Parker) organises a camping trip which goes horribly wrong when she falls down a cliff while trying to save a kangaroo.  A mysterious intruder terrifies the Willis household in Neighbours (Ten).  Nine starts two weeks of late-night coverage of Wimbledon.

Tuesday:  TV legend Don Lane (pictured, with Steven Jacobs) guest stars in comedy All Together Now (Nine), playing the part of a Tonight show host who visits the Rivers household after Anna (Jane Hall) wins a competition.  Queenie Ashton, Pippa Grandison and Sally Hudson guest star in GP (ABC).

Wednesday:  Geraldine Doogue presents a Hindsight (ABC) special, Ming Dynasty, looking back over three decades of the Menzies era and his management of our country which resulted in lost economic opportunities.

Thursday:  Colette Mann guest stars in The Flying Doctors (Nine).

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  22 June 1991.  Southdown Press

TV battle over Abigail

Australia’s first TV sex symbol Abigail (pictured) has unwittingly become fodder for  the ongoing battle between the 6.30pm ‘current affairs’ programs.

On Wednesday night’s Today Tonight, Abigail and her husband, actor Adrian Wright were depicted as ‘squatters’ living in a church hall – the story featuring blurry hidden-camera-type images of the former sex symbol, who shot to fame in controversial ‘70s soap Number 96 and later appeared in Sons And Daughters in the ‘80s and Chances in the ‘90s, as it sought to shame her as a reclusive hermit.  The story did acknowledge that the couple were living in the church building with the permission of the Uniting Church minister as the result of their own home being repeatedly damaged by flood, but attempted to portray them as a drain on the charity of others and the wider community.

The outrage that followed, with editorial and comments on TV Tonight, led to A Current Affair taking the opportunity on Thursday night to set the record straight on the former star’s situation – as someone who is seeking nothing more than a quiet life in the country, after years in the television spotlight, and like many others wanting to re-build after the devastating floods but not seeking any special treatment or fame or wanting to be known as a ‘sob story’.  The story featured supportive comments from close friend, producer Posie Graham-Evans, showbiz commentator Peter Ford and TV presenter and soap opera historian Andrew Mercado. 

But, not to let ACA get away with the story, Today Tonight sought to rake together a ‘response’ to its own story from the previous night.  While TT’s initial story set out to shame the former TV legend, the follow up was overflowing with sympathy from John Michael Howson and actor John Orcsik as well as former Number 96 colleague Joe Hasham.  There were also more comments from Mercado, who also appeared in the initial TT story but perhaps not aware of the angle that the story was to take.

In its follow up, Today Tonight sought to link the plight of Abigail to a nostalgic tribute to another soap opera, Prisoner – a series that the actress had no significant link to at all, though her husband Wright was a cast member.  It was a curious story that really only appeared to serve as a retort to the A Current Affair story on Abigail as well as a catch-up to ACA’s tribute to Prisoner that went to air some weeks ago when the cast reunited to promote the show’s debut on pay-TV channel 111 Hits.

It is sad to see that Today Tonight has sparked this story in an attempt to shame someone so fondly remembered by the public whose only ‘crime’ is to innocently seek a private, peaceful retirement and to re-build from the devastation of the recent Victorian floods.  It is a sad contrast to rival ACA who have taken a more nostalgic approach in its recent revisiting of former TV favourites.

Source: Today Tonight, A Current Affair, Today Tonight, TV Tonight

TelevisionAU Update 7-Jan-2011

http://www.televisionau.com

FLASHBACK #57:
In 1981 former The Box actress Judy Nunn made a guest appearance in another Crawford Productions drama, Skyways.  Her guest role is as Bessie Langhurst, a World War II pilot who makes a mysterious re-appearance after going missing on a solo war flight in 1944, and looking exactly as she was when she disappeared - with the 37-year mystery of the missing ghost flight leading to a dramatic climax.  Judy Nunn would later go on to appear in drama series Sons And Daughters, followed by the long-running role of Ailsa in Seven's Home And Away.  She is now an accomplished writer with several titles of adult and children's fiction to her credit.  Picture: TV Week, 3 January 1981.

CLASSIC TV GUIDES
Melbourne:
1957 (Opening Night GTV9)
1976 (TV Week Logie Awards)
1976 (Opening Ceremony, Olympic Games)
1993 (Announcement of host city for 2000 Olympic Games. The Footy Show begins)

Victoria:
1965 (Official Opening STV8)
1980 (Melbourne Cup Day)

New South Wales:
1962 (Official Opening CBN8)
1962 (Official Opening WIN4)

Canberra:
1993 (Prime 6 O’Clock News launches)
2000

GREAT OZ TV FLOPS
The Bounce (Seven, 2010)
Warnie (Nine, 2010)

TELEVISIONAU - THE HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN TELEVISION
http://www.televisionau.com
http://blog.televisionau.com
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ACA interviews Reg Grundy

It is not often that this site actively promotes A Current Affair but will make an exception for this coming Monday’s edition as host Tracy Grimshaw interviews legendary television producer Reg Grundy (pictured) and wife, actress and author Joy Chambers at their home in Bermuda.

Grundy first appeared on TV in 1959 as the host and producer of an afternoon game show, Wheel Of Fortune, which had made the move from radio to Sydney’s TCN9.  He then went on to produce more game shows during the 1960s before branching out into TV dramas and movies in the 1970s.  The list of Grundy productions read like a timeline in the history of Australian television, including Ampol Stamp Quiz, I’ve Got A Secret (where he met his future wife), Temptation, Moneymakers, Class Of ‘74, Pot Of Gold, Family Feud, Blankety Blanks, The Celebrity Game, The Young Doctors, Chopper Squad, The Restless Years, Sale Of The Century, Prisoner, Sons And Daughters, Perfect Match, It’s A Knockout, Neighbours, Secret Valley, Wheel Of Fortune, Australia’s Most Wanted, Richmond Hill, Embassy and The Price Is Right. 

Wife Chambers, a winner of two TV Week Logie awards for most popular female personality in Queensland in the late 1960s before becoming Mrs Grundy, went on to appear in a number of Grundy productions including The Restless Years, The Celebrity Game and Neighbours (most recently appearing in the lead-up to the show’s celebrated 6000th episode).  She is also an accomplished author in her own right.

As well as many Grundy dramas selling internationally – most notably Prisoner (pictured), The Young Doctors, Neighbours and Sons And Daughters – he also successfully franchised various game show and drama formats overseas, producing international versions of Sale Of The Century, Prisoner and The Restless Years.  He also produced a game show, Scrabble, for US network NBC.

He sold Grundy Television Productions to UK-based Pearson International in the mid-1990s – it has since been incorporated into the global Fremantle Media group.

Grundy was inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame in 1993 and received Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2008. 

Despite his many years in television, Grundy has remained a very private figure and has very rarely allowed to be interviewed and the appearance on A Current Affair came as the expense of Sunday Night and 60 Minutes which had both also tried to secure an interview.

The interview is said to coincide with the release of his autobiography.

A Current Affair.  Monday 20 September, 6.30pm.  Nine*

Source: The Daily Telegraph (via The Spy Report), Sydney Morning Herald.

 

* Melbourne.  Other areas, check local guides.

1990: September 15-21

Let’s party!
Next month, stars of past and present TV shows will gather with fans to pay tribute to the industry that has made them household names and will raise money for charity at the same time.  The Sprite-TV Celebrity Dance Party, hosted by Paula Duncan, will aid the Lorna Hodgkinson Sunshine Home for the intellectually handicapped.  Some of the famous faces attending the event include Georgie Parker and Craig McLachlan (pictured) joining cast members from shows including Sons And Daughters, Neighbours, Cop Shop, Home And Away, Prisoner, A Country Practice and The Flying Doctors.  TV Week is also involved in the event and is giving away ten double passes, including airfares and hotel accommodation for interstate winners.

Back to the boards
Lean times in the television industry are seeing many actors and actresses officially out of work.  Actors Equity says that 85 per cent of the 12,000 registered actors and actresses are out of acting work while many performers familiar to TV viewers are now making the move into the theatre – Alex Papps and Roger Oakley (formerly of Home And Away), Anne Phelan (pictured, last seen in Family And Friends), Kim Lewis (The Restless Years, Sons And Daughters) and Joan Sydney (A Country Practice) are just some TV performers who are now taking on theatre roles.  For Lewis, who is co-starring with boyfriend John O’Hare (recently seen in GP) in the Sydney production of Little Malcolm And His Struggle Against The Eunuchs, it is a welcome change from television.  “I was always yearning for theatre work,” she told TV Week.  “It’s a whole other world.  You can’t stop and just go over mistakes.  You’re there.  That’s it.”  For actress Anne Phelan, while she is grateful for her latest role in the Melbourne Theatre Company’s This Old Man Comes Rolling Home, says she is not as excited at the move into the theatre.  “I’m at the stage where I’m thinking I should never have been an actor,” she said.  “I’m feeling insecure because this role is massive and difficult.  If someone offered me six months of TV work I’d say yes.”  Joan Sydney, also starring in the MTC play, told TV Week: “Theatre is where the real acting is, but I enjoyed TV.  I don’t consider it second rate.”

The big match… but this time Dermie’s the loser!
The long-running, unresolved romantic tension between Dr Elly Fielding (Penny Cook) and Reverend Bob Brown (Tony Martin) on Network Ten’s E Street is about to be sealed with a kiss.  The pair are brought closer together after the owner of a local video store, played by AFL footballer Dermot Brereton (pictured, with Penny Cook), falls for Dr Fielding and she enlists the help of the reverend to tell Dermot that he is involved with her instead.  The irony is, of course, that Reverend Bob has always loved Elly, and this incident looks likely to finally bring them together.

Briefly…
Actor Jeremy Kewley, currently featuring in Network Ten’s Candid Camera, says it is surprising just how many people are with people they shouldn’t be when the camera catches them out.  “This happens often in restaurants.  You’d be surprised at the number of diners on dates with people other than their official partners,” he told TV Week.  Although he does point out that anyone they do play a trick on is asked to sign a form agreeing to have the segment shown on TV.

Former Neighbours star Geoff Paine was stunned when he was approached to join the cast of The Comedy Company.  “It had never occurred to me that one day I’d be working with this team. It was quite a surprise to be asked,” he told TV Week.  He is also thrilled at joining the show after Network Ten scrapped a proposed drama series, City Hospital, that was to feature Paine reprising his former Neighbours role of Dr Clive Gibbons.

Former Family And Friends star Gavin Harrison has a new-found confidence as a result of training for an upcoming episode of GP where he will play a boxing hero who has to rely on drugs to keep fighting.  “Working on GP was the best experience of my life,” he told TV Week.  “It was the series I wanted to work on and the character was a real challenge to me.  They wanted an actor who could box and make it look professional, so that was a hurdle I had to get over.”

Hey Hey It’s Saturday cast members John Blackman and Wilbur Wilde have had their breakfast show on Melbourne radio station 3UZ abruptly cancelled after the station decided to adopt a new full-time sports format. 

John Laws says…
”Ten’s decision to screen all-night news and current affairs from the CNN network in America will, no doubt, please those night-owl viewers who want a change from Seven’s rival NBC Today or third-rate movies.  CNN’s Daybreak, now screening on Ten, is a slick, rapid-fire news show, covering anything of world or national interest to Americans.  It was time, of course, for someone to to offer spirited competition to Bryant Gumbel and the NBC Today show.  I understand the program’s ratings have dipped recently in the US, which is not a surprise.  The Today show comes across as a tired, disorganised shadow of what it was a few years ago.”

Program Highlights (September 15-21):
Sunday:  GTV9 crosses to Phillip Island for live coverage of the Australian 500cc Motorcycle Grand Prix .  Leading the coverage are Barry Sheene and Darrell Eastlake.  Meanwhile, HSV7 presents a two-hour afternoon special, The Season That Was, presenting highlights of the 1990 AFL season.  ATV10 presents live coverage of the Preliminary Final of the NSW Rugby League.  Sunday night movies are Year Of The Dragon (HSV7), Funny Farm (GTV9) and The Year My Voice Broke (ATV10).

Monday:  Andrew Denton presents a new show, The Money Or The Gun, on ABC – described as a “documentary/chat/comedy show where the real meets the surreal.”

Tuesday:  HSV7 and GTV9 both cross to Tokyo for a 90-minute presentation on the announcement of the host city of the 1996 Olympic Games.  Bruce McAvaney heads HSV7’s telecast, while Brian Naylor, prime minister Bob Hawke and A Current Affair’s Jana Wendt are part of the presenting team on GTV9’s telecast.  ATV10 promises to provide updates on the announcement during its Tuesday night movie, Prizzi’s Honour.  Melbourne is one of the six cities bidding for the Games, up against Athens, Manchester, Toronto, Belgrade and Atlanta.

Thursday:  In Acropolis Now (HSV7), after a disastrous theatre date with Liz (Tracey Callander), Jim (Nick Giannopoulos) decides to stage his own version of Romeo And Juliet.  Although Skirts star Nicholas Bell turns up to “addition” for the part of Romeo, Jim instead takes on the role and asks Effie (Mary Coustas, pictured) to be his Juliet.

Friday:  During the day, HSV7 crosses to White City, Sydney for the semi-final of the Davis Cup – Australia versus Argentina.  That night, HSV7 goes to the Glasshouse for the National Basketball League game between Melbourne Tigers and North Melbourne Giants.

Source: TV Week (Victoria edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  15 September 1990.  Southdown Press.

Remembering Seven’s Epping era

The Sunrise team earlier this week posted a picture via their Twitter feed showing the demolition (“using Gladiator props as wrecking balls?”) of the Seven Network’s former studios in Sydney.

The studios, in the suburb of Epping, were barely completed when the ribbon across the Studio B doors was cut on ATN7’s opening night – 2 December 1956.  And the opening night almost didn’t happen at all as a massive thunderstorm hit Sydney earlier that day, blacking out many suburbs – including Epping.  Power was restored just in time to allow the studio cameras the required 45 minutes to warm up before airtime.  VIPs arrived at the complex in torrential rain and had to make their way across mud tracks to get to the building.

In its early years the Epping complex hosted many Australian television firsts – the first ‘tonight’ show, Sydney Tonight with Keith Walshe, the first breakfast news show, Today with Ray Taylor, the first current affairs show, Seven On 7, and the first soap operas, Autumn Affair and The Story Of Peter Grey.  ATN7 was the first TV station in Australia to install videotape equipment in the late 1950s.  The station also partnered with Melbourne’s GTV9 to complete the first ever transmission between Sydney and Melbourne via a series of microwave links.

Other shows to have emanated from Epping include Revue ‘61, Startime, Sing Sing Sing (The Johnny O’Keefe Show), Beauty And The Beast, Captain Fortune, Pick-A-Box, The Mavis Bramston Show (pictured), My Name’s McGooley What’s Yours?, Great Temptation, Sydney Today, Eleven AM, The Naked Vicar Show, Kingswood Country, Romper Room, Sounds, Cartoon Connection, Saturday Morning Live, Sportsworld, Terry Willesee Tonight, Wheel Of Fortune, Hey Dad!, Real Life, Sunrise and The Main Event.

Some of TVs most famous names have also spent time at Epping.  Roger Climpson was ATN7’s principal newsreader for many years and also hosted This Is Your Life and Australia’s Most Wanted.  Mike Willesee, Graham Kennedy, Clive Robertson, Rex Mossop, Paul Hogan (pictured), Norman Gunston (Garry McDonald), Peter Luck, Bill Collins, Maggie Tabberer, Jana Wendt and Andrew Denton have also worked at the Epping studios.  And of course the many actors and actresses that passed through the various dramas to have come from Epping – series including Jonah, Motel, Catwalk, Class Of ‘74, Glenview High, A Country Practice, Sons And Daughters, Rafferty’s Rules, Home And Away, All Saints and Packed To The Rafters.

ATN7 has now moved to new facilities at the Australian Technology Park (pictured) in the Sydney suburb of Redfern – while news production facilities, including Sunrise, Seven News, Today Tonight and The Morning Show, are based at Martin Place in the Sydney CBD.

Source: Sunrise, Sydney Architecture, Forty Years Of Television: The Story Of ATN7.

1990: March 31-April 6

Tammy’s springing into movies!
Tammy McIntosh’s career is set to leap even further than she had imagined.  The former Perth girl (pictured, with Andrew McFarlane) went from children’s program C’mon Kids to prime-time drama as nurse Annie Rogers in The Flying Doctors – and has drawn praise from Nine drama chief Alan Bateman:  “I really think this is the best Flying Doctors series ever and I’m particularly excited about Tammy.  She brings a real sparkle and energy to the show.”  Now it seems there could be a future for the 19-year-old on the big screen, with plans to head to Sydney to discuss a film role before returning to Melbourne for production of the next series of The Flying Doctors. 

Will Carol come back?
The Seven Network is in negotiation with Carol Willesee, estranged wife of current affairs identity Mike Willesee, over reinstating her for the leading role of Pippa Fletcher in Home And Away.  Willesee was originally appointed for the role when the pilot was being produced in 1987 but quit the show after two days’ filming.  Willesee cited the long hours and disruption to her family commitments as reasons for leaving and she parted company with Seven amicably.  Vanessa Downing, who ended up being cast as Pippa, is now set to leave the show when her contract expires later in the year, leading to the negotiations between Seven and Willesee.  But a Seven spokesperson said that “nothing has been resolved.”  Willesee recently completed a guest role in Nine’s Family And Friends (pictured).

Farewell to a golden girl
Pat McDonald, the much-loved actress through her long-serving roles in Number 96 and Sons And Daughters, has died from cancer.  The multi-Logie award winner first became ill only six months ago when she collapsed just minutes before stepping on to the stage for the Sydney production of Alex Buzo’s play, Shellcove Road.  Ten days before her death in hospital, McDonald asked that she be carried to her resting place in a pink hearse.  Close friend Stuart Wagstaff, speaking at McDonald’s farewell at St Stephen’s church in Sydney, conceded “we could not find one – it seems there is not much call for a pink hearse in Sydney – so we had to settle for white.”  The funeral was attended by many of her former Number 96 and Sons And Daughters colleagues – including Ron Shand, Johnny Lockwood, Elisabeth Kirkby, Jeff Kevin, Thelma Scott, James Elliott, Joanna Lockwood, Leila Hayes, Brian Blain, Tom Richards and Danny Roberts.  A one-time TV Week Gold Logie winner (in 1974), one of McDonald’s last TV appearances was in the opening number of the 1989 TV Week Logie Awards, appearing alongside other female Gold Logie winners Lorrae Desmond, Hazel Phillips, Rowena Wallace and Denise Drysdale.

Briefly…
Former Sons And Daughters star Brian Blain is on the comeback trail after a horrific motorcycle accident which nearly killed him.  Suffering five broken ribs and a broken collarbone, Blain says that if it wasn’t for his crash helmet he would have broken his neck too.  The 53-year-old actor is making a return to television in a guest role on A Country Practice, working alongside old friend Shane Porteous with who he started his acting career with in Brisbane.

Showbiz couple John Orcsik and Paula Duncan moved to Sydney two years ago to avoid work-related separations – but now the pair each find themselves in demand in separate cities.  Orcsik (pictured) has been performing in Melbourne in David Williamson’s play Siren, and is set to follow the show on a national tour, while Duncan has been appearing in Sydney-based soap Home And Away, with producers pushing for a long-term commitment.

Neighbours producers have decided to write out the popular character of Sharon Davies, played by 19-year-old Jessica Muschamp who says the decision may have been a “blessing in disguise.”  Muschamp told TV Week, “As good as it had been, they probably felt that Sharon didn’t have as much of a family base as some of the other characters.”  She will finish with Neighbours in five weeks and is already committed to English pantomime performances over Christmas and is considering mini-series and theatre roles in Australia.

John Laws says…
”Why did Nine’s Family And Friends (pictured) struggle so desperately in the ratings in prime time?  It’s something of a mystery, because the show is no worse than any other of the other top-rating soaps screening at the moment.  Yet viewers rejected it and Nine has banished it to 5.30pm.  Why should this be?”

Program Highlights (March 31-April 6):
Saturday:  HSV7 crosses to Carrara, Brisbane, for Saturday night AFL – Brisbane Bears versus Richmond – with commentators Sandy Roberts, Peter McKenna, Don Scott and boundary reports from Bill McDonald.
Sunday:  The afternoon is dominated by sport – NBL (HSV7), AFL (HSV7), Figure Skating (GTV9), Davis Cup Tennis (on SBS, taking the Seven Network coverage due to that network’s AFL commitments) and Rugby League (ATV10).  Sunday night movies are Firewalker (HSV7), The Razor’s Edge (GTV9) and Off Limits (ATV10).
Tuesday:  In ABC’s drama GP, Steve (Michael O’Neill) is devastated when he discovers that a close friend has AIDS.  He has to reconcile himself to his friend’s homosexuality and help him to cope with the trauma.
Wednesday:  ATV10 presents a re-run of mini-series My Brother Tom, starring Gordon Jackson, Keith Michell, Christopher Cummins and Tom Jennings.
Thursday:  In Home And Away (HSV7), how much longer can Sophie (Rebekah Elmaloglou) put off revealing her lack of literacy skills? 
Friday:  HSV7 presents Friday night AFL coverage of Richmond versus North Melbourne from the MCG.

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

Good Friday Appeal on again

Good Friday in Victoria means another Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal, raising funds for what is one of the world’s leading children’s hospitals – caring for over 280,000 children each year from around Australia and overseas.

This year marks the 80th year for the appeal which was started as a sporting carnival, organised by journalists of the Herald and Weekly Times (HWT), in 1931.  During World War II, HWT’s radio station 3DB launched an all-day broadcast for the Appeal.

The advent of television in 1956 saw HWT’s new television station, HSV7, first involved with the Appeal.  HSV7’s first effort for the Good Friday Appeal in 1957 was a three-hour afternoon telecast.

In 1960, HSV7 presented its first all-day telethon on Good Friday – starting at 7.00am and continuing through to 6.15pm, before resuming for an hour at 8.00pm and then again at 10.30pm through to the announcement of the final total at midnight.  This is in contrast to HSV7’s usual weekday transmission which at that time didn’t start until mid-afternoon and would wind up before midnight.

The 1960 appeal raised a total of £231,750, far exceeding the previous year’s total of £174,129. 

In 1977 the appeal passed the $1 million milestone for the first time – raising a total of $1,489,866.84 – and the $2 million milestone only four years later.

This year’s appeal is likely to top last year’s record total of $13,862,734.

Meanwhile, the Herald Sun reports that rival channel GTV9 has upset Good Friday Appeal organisers with the Nine Network opting to air segments of the Brisbane-based Good Friday telethon for the Mater Children's Hospital, during its regular national programs Today, Kerri-Anne and A Current Affair.

The Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal.  Friday 2 April, from 9.30am.  HSV7 (Melbourne) and Prime Television (Regional Victoria) – in association with the Herald and Weekly Times and radio stations 3AW and Magic 1278.

Pictured (top): HSV7 weather presenter Ilona Komescaroff with actor John Thaw, from UK series The Sweeney, in 1977, and (above) Countdown’s Molly Meldrum, Pat McDonald (Sons And Daughters) and booth announcer John Deeks on the Good Friday Appeal panel in 1982.

UPDATE @ 12.40 3.4.2010: The Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal has signed off with a record-breaking final total of $14,462,000.

Neighbours: 25 today!

When Daphne Lawrence (Elaine Smith, pictured) was doing her striptease at the buck’s night for Des Clarke (Paul Keane) on the eve of his marriage to Lorraine Kingham (Antionette Byron) on the premiere episode of Neighbours, nobody’s wildest predictions would have foreseen that the show would survive to see its 25th anniversary.

Even the most optimistic predictions would have only permitted Neighbours to have a lifespan of a few years. At the time of the show’s debut – 18 March 1985 in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide (Brisbane followed with a 90-minute launch a week later) – apart from ABC’s Bellbird (1967-1977) the longest running Australian soaps had been Number 96, The Sullivans, The Young Doctors, Cop Shop (all around six years each) and Prisoner (which had entered its seventh year in 1985).

As well as TV newcomers like Smith and Keane, Neighbours’ founding cast included a few familiar faces – Anne Haddy (Play School, Prisoner, Sons And Daughters), Alan Dale (The Young Doctors), Peter O’Brien (Starting Out), Darius Perkins (All The Rivers Run and the telemovie Matthew And Son), Stefan Dennis (Prisoner) and David Clencie (The Sullivans, Starting Out).

But after only a few months on air, Neighbours was headed for TV landfill when the Seven Network pulled the plug after a lack of support from ATN7, Sydney, and despite strong-ish ratings elsewhere. But the show’s producers, the Grundy Organisation, felt there was still life in the concept – after all, the UK’s neighbourhood drama, Coronation Street, was into its third decade by that stage – so the show was successfully offered to Network Ten, creating Australian TV history as the first drama series to swap networks.

The re-launch on Ten, on 20 January 1986, gave the show a fresher, younger emphasis with a bunch of young newcomers enlisted to the cast – Jason Donovan, Guy Pearce, Annie Jones, Geoff Paine, Charlene Fenn and, a few months later, Kylie Minogue (then a 17-year-old known from The Henderson Kids and for being the older sister of Young Talent Time cast member Danielle Minogue) Also added to the line-up were Anne Charleston (fresh from a former Grundy’s drama, Possession), Ally Fowler (Sons And Daughters) and Vivean Gray (The Sullivans).

Then the show was given an international audience with its debut on BBC1 in a daytime timeslot in 1986, but it was a shift to the 5.30pm timeslot in 1988 that saw Neighbours catapulted to ratings domination, even bumping stalwart Coronation Street and relative newcomer EastEnders from the top of the ratings.

The show went on to win a swag of TV Week Logie awards, including Gold Logies for Kylie Minogue (1988) and Craig McLachlan (1990) and the show being inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame to coincide with its 20th anniversary in 2005.

With success in the United Kingdom and even further abroad (though the Americans never took to it), Neighbours’ longevity was all but certainly confirmed – as without such widespread international support and income, Neighbours could well have had a similar lifespan to its predecessors.

As well as its 25th anniversary, which will be officially celebrated over the coming weeks, Neighbours is also approaching its 6000th episode, scheduled to air in Australia sometime around August.

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