Is the Price Right for Seven?

Is The Price Is Right headed for a comeback?

According to News Limited, it appears that Seven is keen to revive the age-old format to run back-to-back with Deal Or No Deal in the important lead-in hour to the 6.00pm news.

It is tipped that the revamped Price Is Right will be hosted by Larry Emdur (pictured), currently co-host of Seven’s popular The Morning Show and who hosted two previous versions of The Price Is Right for the Nine Network.  Emdur has also hosted game shows Family Double Dare, The Main Event, Cash Bonanza and Wheel Of Fortune.

News of the planned revival comes after a wave of nostalgia for the format following the recent passing of Ian Turpie who hosted the game show during the 1980s for both the Seven and Ten networks.

The Price Is Right is certainly one of the most enduring of game show formats on Australian television – usually enjoying a few years on air before taking a break and then resurfacing to an enthusiastic reception. 

It made its first appearance in the late 1950s with separate versions in each of Sydney and Melbourne.  A ‘national’ version, hosted by Horrie Dargie, launched as a daytime program on the Seven Network in 1963.

Ten years later the 0-10 Network revived the titled, based on the updated format launched in the US, with host Garry Meadows.  The program was so successful in its daytime format that the network expanded it to run in prime-time as well.

The Seven Network then launched The New Price Is Right, hosted by Turpie, in September 1981 on the back of failed early-evening game shows Celebrity Tattletales and Catch Us If You Can.  The show was a hit and ran for around four years.  Turpie reprised his role as host when Ten launched The Price Is Right as a Saturday night program as part of its ill-fated 10 TV Australia line-up of 1989.

Nine then revived The Price Is Right with Emdur as host for several years during the 1990s and then again in 2003.  The show last appeared in 2005.

Last year Emdur made a guest appearance on the US version of The Price Is Right as part of that show’s 40th anniversary celebration.

The recycling of classic TV show formats is hardly new but appears to be a trend among American producers and has seen the revival of some former Australian favourites, including Hey Hey It’s Saturday, It’s A Knockout, Young Talent Time and the recent announcement of a remake of drama series Prisoner, but success in this strategy is proving to be hard to come by.  However, The Price Is Right is one format that seems to always bounce back on a high.

Source: News.com.au

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.

Obituary: Ian Turpie

Australian showbusiness has lost one of its true veterans with reports that Ian Turpie has died from cancer at the age of 68.

Born in Melbourne in 1943, his career started as a child actor back in the 1950s working in radio and theatre productions.  He later moved to television as a performer on variety shows including Bandstand, Sing Sing Sing (formerly The Johnny O’Keefe Show) and the Melbourne-based daytime show Time For Terry.

In 1964, Turpie became the first “victim” in the iconic television drama series Homicide, playing the role of a university student who was shot dead while staging a mock bank hold-up in the opening scenes of the first episode.

He was later a host of the mid-1960s pop music program Go!!

Working as a variety and club performer during the 1970s Turpie made a television hosting comeback in 1981 on The New Price Is Right (pictured), a reprisal of the game show franchise that had last appeared on Australian TV in the mid-1970s.  The show was a hit for the Seven Network and lasted for around four years.  He was to revisit the format in 1989 when the Ten Network launched The Price Is Right as a Saturday night program.

In the early 1980s he hosted a variety program, Turpie Tonight, for Perth channel TVW7.  The program won a TV Week Logie in 1983 for Most Popular Program in Western Australia.

He also hosted game shows Press Your Luck, The Newlyweds Game and Supermarket Sweep.

Later television appearances included drama series Always Greener and comedies Club Buggery, Pizza, Swift And Shift Couriers and Housos.

He was diagnosed with cancer early last year.

Last May he was inducted into the Mo Awards’ Hall of Fame and there is now an online campaign via Facebook to have Turpie inducted into the TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame.

Ian Turpie is survived by wife Jan, three children and three grandchildren.

Source: Yahoo7, Ian Turpie, IMDB, TV Eye – Classic Australian Television, Daily Telegraph.

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 8-14

What an awesome foursome!
”I can’t believe I’m here,” says A Country Practice star Georgie Parker as she arrives for the TV Week photo shoot.  “I don’t even have my own show!”  TV Week has assembled Parker and her three Gold Logie co-nominees – Ray Martin, Jana Wendt and Steve Vizard – for a special front cover in the lead up to this week’s presentation of the 34th annual TV Week Logie Awards from the Radisson President Hotel, Melbourne.  The awards will be telecast on the Seven Network on Friday, 13 March.

TV Week Logie Awards nominations (Publicly voted categories):
Gold Logie: Ray Martin, Georgie Parker, Steve Vizard, Jana Wendt.  (1991 winner: Steve Vizard, pictured)

Most Popular Actor: Marcus Graham, Shane Porteous, Bruce Samazan, Gary Sweet. (1991 winner: Craig McLachlan)

Most Popular Actress: Rebekah Elmaloglou, Rebecca Gibney, Georgie Parker, Kate Raison. (1991 winner: Georgie Parker)

Most Popular Series: A Country Practice, E Street, Home And Away, The Flying Doctors. (1991 winner: Home And Away)

Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Program: All Together Now (pictured), Fast Forward, Hey Dad! (1991 winner: Fast Forward)

Most Popular Public Affairs Program: A Current Affair, Hinch, 60 Minutes. (1991 winner: A Current Affair)

Most Popular Telemovie/Mini-Series: Brides Of Christ, Golden Fiddles, Which Way Home. (1991 winner: Jackaroo)

Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Personality (Male): Jon English, Daryl Somers, Steve Vizard (1991 winner: Steve Vizard)

Most Popular Light Entertainment/Comedy Personality (Female): Rebecca Gibney, Julie McGregor, Magda Szubanski. (1991 winner: Magda Szubanski)

Most Popular Sports Coverage: AFL Grand Final, Cricket, Tennis. (1991 winner: Cricket)

Most Popular Children’s Program: Agro’s Cartoon Connection, Play School, The Bugs Bunny Show (1991 winner: Agro’s Cartoon Connection)

Most Popular Lifestyle/Information Program: Beyond 2000, Burke’s Backyard, What’s Cooking (1991 winner: Burke’s Backyard)

Most Popular New Talent: Matthew Krok (pictured), Jeremy Sims, Melissa Tkautz, Kym Wilson

Other public-voted awards: Most Popular Music Video, Most Popular Actor and Actress in a Telemovie or Mini-Series, Most Popular Program (for each state) and Most Popular Personality (for each state).

TV Week Logie Award categories (Industry voted):
Gold Logie – TV Week Logie Awards’ Hall of Fame, Most Outstanding Actor, Most Outstanding Actress, Most Outstanding Telemovie/Mini-Series, Most Outstanding Series, Most Outstanding Achievement in Public Affairs, Most Outstanding Achievement in News, Most Outstanding Single Documentary or Series, Most Outstanding Achievement by Regional Television.

Ramsay Street rush hour
In another attempt to bring the long-running Neighbours back to its former ratings glory, producers are ramping up the show’s storylines as well as writing out four cast members while signing up three new faces.  Lorraine Bayly, Jeremy Angerson, Andrew Williams and Gillian Blakeney are all leaving the show in coming weeks – while Ben Mitchell (pictured) and Felice Arena are joining the series, and former guest star Natalie Imbruglia is returning for an ongoing role.  Producer Don Battye is confident of re-signing Melissa Bell when her contract expires mid-year, despite moves to have her swap over to Ten’s other evening soap, E Street.  Veteran actor Tom Oliver has been re-signed with Neighbours, with plans to romantically match up his character Lou Carpenter to recently-widowed Madge Bishop (Anne Charleston).  Producers are also casting for two teenagers to enter the series as Carpenter’s children.  Another romantic storyline being devised by writers is set to involve Lucy Robinson (Melissa Bell) and Brad Willis (Scott Michaelson). 

Mike cops a new show
Mike Willesee is set to return to prime-time television on a regular basis, following his recent stint as fill-in host on A Current Affair.  The television veteran is about to sign a multi-million dollar with the Nine Network to produce a hard-hitting real-life police action series, described loosely as an Australian version of the American series Cops.  The new show is expected to be hosted by Willesee’s son, Michael Willesee Jnr, who is currently working in Los Angeles for Network Ten’s Hard Copy. 

Paradise is…
… warm tropical nights, a turquoise lagoon and beautiful half-naked girls wandering barefoot on white sands.  This exotic setting, on the island of Rarotonga, is the backdrop for the $2 million mini-series adaptation of Noel Barber’s epic novel The Other Side Of Paradise, being produced in a joint venture between Grundy Television, Central Films (UK) and South Pacific Films (NZ).  The series stars Jason Connery (son of Sean Connery) and newcomer Vivien Tan (pictured) and screens this week on Network Ten.

Briefly…
Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum has scored the only TV interview with Jason Donovan, who made a brief visit home only a few weeks ago.  However, Meldrum’s exclusive interview was made for Nine’s Melbourne Extra program, instead of his regular program, Hey Hey It’s Saturday.  Hey Hey host and producer Daryl Somers is said to have been less than impressed.

The Nine Network has spared no expense in trying to convince TV legend Graham Kennedy (pictured) to host a special to coincide with his upcoming 60th birthday.  Kennedy, last seen on TV on Nine’s recent 35 Years Of Television special, was flown by helicopter from his country property in southern NSW to Nine’s Sydney headquarters for a lavish lunch to celebrate his 58th birthday and Nine presented him with a rare book on horse breeding. 

The Seven Network has given the go-ahead for sitcom Bligh, from the producers of Fast Forward, but have passed on the producers’ other proposal, a comedy series set in a radio station.  Meanwhile, Fast Forward producers Steve Vizard and Andrew Knight are negotiating to stage a live version of Fast Forward, following the success of the stage adaptation of British series ‘Allo ‘Allo.

Hey Hey It’s Saturday duo John Blackman and Wilbur Wilde have been staging their own radio comeback since being dumped by Melbourne station 3UZ.  The pair have been taking their radio act to regional and remote parts of the country as short-term fill-ins on local radio stations.  So far they’ve been heard on local stations in Townsville and Launceston and places in between, and are already booked for future engagements in regional Victoria, NSW and Tasmania in coming months.  Although some of the shows are based at the radio stations’ local studios, most of their radio appearances have been via landline from studios in Melbourne.

Lawrie Masterson: The View From Here
”Four of Australian television’s top names, from two networks and two cities… even five years ago, just the thought of trying to get them all to sit still in the one place at the one time would have been enough to make me shudder.  You only have to glance at this week’s cover for further proof – Ray Martin, Georgie Parker, Steve Vizard and Jana Wendt all in one photograph.  Read nothing into the order in which I’ve mentioned them, other than it is alphabetical.  They agreed to get together to promote the biggest night on the television industry’s calendar, the TV Week Logie Awards.  As far as I’m aware, it is the first time such a shoot – the four Gold Logie nominees together – has been set up.  It all happened in the space of an hour (on a Friday afternoon).  It had to.  Ray – not long after finishing another week of Midday for Nine – was committed to go to Canberra to attend a meeting of the Aboriginal Reconciliation Council, of which he is a member.  Georgie was due back on the set of A Country Practice… she was scheduled to shoot her final scenes as one of that series’ all-time favourite characters, Lucy Tyler.  And Jana was required back in the A Current Affair office to prepare to anchor that evening’s show.  Now, of course, the big question is which one of the four will be on the cover of TV Week’s 1992 Logie Awards souvenir issue.  The answer to that is under wraps until about 11.00pm on Friday, 13 March.”

Program Highlights (Melbourne, March 8-14):
Sunday:  Seven presents live coverage of the Moomba Masters water skiing from Melbourne’s Yarra River, while Nine has World Cup cricket from Brisbane, and Ten has the Rugby Union Five Nations from Murrayfield, Scotland.  Sunday night movies are When Harry Met Sally (Seven) and The Dead Pool (Nine) up against the first instalment of two-part mini-series The Other Side Of Paradise (Ten).

Monday:  The 7.00pm battle between Home And Away and Neighbours, started back in January, comes to an end with Neighbours making the sudden move to the 6.30pm timeslot.  The shift sees Ten’s current affairs program Hinch take over at 7.00pm – the timeslot he previously held over at Seven – and US game show Studs move to 6.00pm.  Seven presents a two-hour concert special, Jimmy Barnes – Soul Deep, from the Palais Theatre, Melbourne, and featuring special guests John Farnham, Johnny Diesel and Ross Wilson.  The concert is simulcast with radio station Triple M.  Ten presents the conclusion to The Other Side Of Paradise.

Tuesday:  Former The Sullivans and Return To Eden star Megan Williams guest stars in All Together Now (Nine), playing the part of Julie, a beautiful electrician who captures the heart of Dougie (Garry Who).  In Beyond 2000 (Seven), Andrew Carroll reports on the kissing bug – a disease affecting millions of people in Latin America, while Bryan Smith discovers a revolutionary design for artificial hips and Tracey Curro reports from the Tokyo Motor Show.  In Chances (Nine), Alex (Jeremy Sims) is shocked to finally learn the truth about his lost year.

Wednesday:  ABC presents a 90-minute special, La Stupenda, a unique portrayal of Dame Joan Sutherland combining interviews, archival footage and performances.  Dame Joan and her husband Richard Bonynge talk about their life in opera, while close friends and colleagues reminisce about Sutherland’s remarkable career spanning 42 years.

Thursday:  In Acropolis Now (Seven), when Memo (George Kapiniaris) is drafted into the Greek Army, Jim (Nick Giannopoulos) turns the cafe into Camp Acropolis.  ABC presents the final of the four-part documentary series When The War Came To Australia.

Friday:   The Seven Network presents the 34th annual TV Week Logie Awards, live from the Radisson President Hotel, Melbourne.  Special international guests include John Stamos, Dennis Waterman and Diana Ross joining local stars including Steve Vizard, Jana Wendt, Ray Martin, Daryl Somers, Jo Bailey, Mary Coustas, Nicolle Dickson, Nick Giannopoulos, Rebecca Gibney, Elizabeth Hayes, Sophie Lee, Gina Riley, Bruce Samazan, Jennifer Keyte, Magda Szubanski and Kym Wilson.  The night culminates with the announcement of the winner of the TV Week Gold Logie for the Most Popular Personality on Australian Television.  The awards presentation is followed by a special post-Logies edition of Tonight Live, hosted by Richard Stubbs.

Saturday:  ABC debuts current affairs program Foreign Correspondent, hosted by George Negus, taking a look at the news behind some of the week’s major world events, including reports from correspondents around the world.  Seven presents live coverage of the AFL Foster’s Cup Grand Final, hosted by Bruce McAvaney, while Ten has delayed coverage of the National Basketball League’s K-Mart Australian Classic.

Source: TV Week (Melbourne edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide.  7 March 1992.  Southdown Press.

Prisoner re-make to focus on Bea Smith

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Foxtel has signed a deal with FremantleMedia to re-tell the tale of life inside the fictional Wentworth Detention Centre.

The deal, which comes after months of negotiations, is to lead to Wentworth, a modern take on the TV classic Prisoner.  To be produced in Melbourne, the new show’s premise is based around the entrance of inmate Bea Smith to the prison – reprising the character originally played by Val Lehman (pictured) – and her rise to the position of ‘top dog’.

Lehman won three TV Week Logies for her performance as murderer Smith, a role she portrayed for around 400 episodes.

Foxtel’s modern-day take on the prison theme comes after Network Ten’s plan to revisit the genre in the 1990s fell through, as did a similar proposal announced in 2010. 

The original Prisoner, developed by Reg Watson, was produced by Grundy Television (a predecessor to FremantleMedia Australia) for Ten between 1979 and 1986.  More than 25 years after its demise the show continues to maintain a loyal fan base both in Australia and overseas.

All 692 episodes have been re-released as a 174-disc DVD box set, and although the series hasn’t been broadcast on Australian free-to-air television since the mid 1990s it continues to be shown each weeknight on pay TV channel 111 Hits.

Prisoner’s original cast also included Sheila Florance, Colette Mann, Elspeth Ballantyne, Patsy King, Peta Toppano, Kerry Armstrong, Fiona Spence, Carol Burns, Don Barker, Barry Quin, Amanda Muggleton and Mary Ward. 

Source: Sydney Morning Herald