Australian Tumbleweeds
You (Dave) Hughes, you lose
If Bladerunner has taught us anything – and it hasn’t, though our memories of it sure did come in handy for getting all those late-series references to it on Newstopia – it’s that there’s nothing worse than an itch you can’t scratch. And because it’s increasingly obvious that it won’t be all that long before the itch that is The 7pm Project is scratched- in the racing sense of the term – it’s time to rub the soothing cream of hate into that nagging, irritating mosquito bite.
Or to put it another way: in the face of plummeting ratings (according to the Herald-Sun) why did anyone at Ten ever think The 7pm Project wouldn’t be rubbish? News-based comedy has been a rotting corpse in this country since The Gillies Report finished in the mid-80s, with Seven’s The Big News and The Late Report both dying relatively quick deaths and the ABC’s various efforts getting closer to success (CNNNN) the further they moved away from “news-based satire” (BackBerner). And let’s not forget Mick Molloy’s 2007 effort The Nation, which fizzled fast despite Mick’s tried and tested (and still present judging by his recent fill-in work with Dave Hughes on Melbourne’s Nova FM breakfast show) ability to get real laughs out of the shallow end of current events.
So why return to that tainted well? Well, for years now it’s been accepted wisdom amongst the not-all-that-wise that “the yoof” get all their news from comedy shows. And if you believe that particular line, then The 7pm Project’s approach of reporting actual news followed by supposedly pithy comments probably makes sense to you. But out in the real world, it wasn’t that “the yoof” were in any way watching comedy shows for the news content: they watched shows like The Panel, The Glasshouse, GNW and The Chaser’s War on Everything to get a laugh. The news content – such as it was – was only there to set up the gags (did anyone learn anything about politics from The Chaser’s pranks past “politicians are stuffy, so it’s funny to attack them with big props”?). Cranking up the news content the way The 7pm Project has done is getting things exactly arse-backwards, like a fifteen minute set-up to a supposedly Gen-Y friendly punchline that revolves around the fact that Malcolm Fraser once lost his pants.
But this wrong-headed reliance on straight-faced news wouldn’t be quite so bad if the show actually imparted some real information to its viewers. Unfortunately, The 7pm Project also suffers from a severe lack of confidence in its own material. Fair enough – most of it’s shithouse. But rushing through a pile of shit doesn’t make the experience any more pleasant. For a half-hour show – one that has suspiciously short ad-breaks (barely two minutes) so presumably Ten is having trouble getting sponsors – there’s an awful lot packed into The 7pm Project, and the rapid scurrying through guests, news items, Skype interviews, featured gag-crackers, Hughsey’s creepy stares, Pickering’s day-old one-liners, and Carrie’s blather gives the impression of some sweaty-palmed blind date who thinks if he doesn’t stop talking you won’t be able to tell him to bugger off.
Case in point: Dave “hughsey” Hughes. Calling his on-air persona simply that of an unfunny moron would be insulting to all other forms of multi-celluar life. Often described in general conversation as “agressively shithouse” for the way he not only won’t let other people talk but demands to talk over them with things far stupider than anyone else in the room would say, his act seems to consist entirely of saying inane but blokey things and then staring at the audience like someone had replaced his eyes with buttons Coraline-style. But those who can remember the dawn of Hughsey’s career when he was just someone a then-far more talented RRR Breakfasters radio team would call up to laugh at as much as with know there actually is a way to use him to get laughs.
Everyone knows Hughsey acts like an idiot, and that he says idiotic things: if you come up with a topic that’s bound to get Hughsey all riled up and then – and this is the tricky part – get him to shut the hell up for a second so the audience can imagine the kind of thing he’s going to say in response to this idiot-baiting topic, then chances are the audience just might giggle in expectation. Christ knows they’re not going to laugh at anything he actually says.
But on The 7pm Project, there’s no time for any of that. Instead we get Dave Hughes just blurting out such dazzling insights as “I don’t get what all the fuss is about with corruption – if I was in a position of power I’d make sure that I was taken care of”. Hilarious! And it’s what we were all thinking – well, that and “why can’t I just make his head explode by staring at him like they did on Scanners”.
That said, at this stage even if Hughsey fell under a bus live on air this show couldn’t be saved. Pickering is on his second high-profile daily gig of his career after being sacked from JJJ drive a few years back, and with his determination to cough out his gags even when the conversation has moved on he seems to be reverting to sack-friendly form. Having no chemistry, let alone overlapping interests, with Hughsey doesn’t really help either, but as this show was put together on the breakfast radio model having co-hosts who barely tolerate each other is par for the course. And in other news, Carrie Bickmore is just… there, some of the guest presenters are funny but they’re just cracking scripted gags in two minute chunks (often from interstate, which means they can’t respond to the audience and grind on over the laughs they’re getting in the studio), and as far as we can tell the rest of the show is clips off YouTube. Which, of course, you can’t see anywhere else.
The problem, as is usually the case with producer-led projects like this one, comes down to talent. The daily grind and the rubbish timeslot could all be overcome if there were some truly funny individuals behind the desk, a team with real chemistry, timing, and the ability to get a decent joke out of a news item and then move on. But this is a Roving Enterprises production: where are these funny individuals going to come from? Rove is going to give jobs to his mates, and as the host of a tonight show Rove isn’t going to have any mates who are funnier than he is. Well, he could – but in close to a decade of Rove, he sure hasn’t shown any signs of following the “rising tide lifts all boats” approach to team management. The funniest people in Australia would have struggled to make The 7pm Project work: when you’re working with a talent pool limited to people judged by Rove to be not as funny as Rove, you’re setting the bar so low you have to call Telstra first to make sure you’re not going to damage any underground phone lines.
Molloy improves Hughesy & Kate non shocker
Mick Molloy is currently filling in for Kate Langbroek on the ludicrously popular Hughesy & Kate whilst Langbroek is on maternity leave. This comes only a few months after Molloy filled in for Dave Hughes when he became a father at the end of April. Like both Langbroek and Hughes, Molloy is a commercial radio veteran who knows the score when it comes to breakfast radio, but with one vital difference: he’s funny.
Listen to any normal edition of Hughesy & Kate and laughs are way down the list of the shows’ features. You want dull personal anecdotes? They’re covered. As are phone-ins, competitions, stunts, celebrity guests, footy tips and some surprisingly biting interviews with federal politicians, but comedy? No, not with Dave Hughes on board.
Enter Mick Molloy, with his knockabout, hard living, blokey persona, carefully crafted through years of stand-up, propping up front bars and his much-missed radio partnership with Tony Martin. Beneath the stubble, the beer gut and the flannelette shirt, Molloy’s a smart man, with a cheeky charm and the ability to come up with a funny line on cue. Throw him into a formulaic breakfast radio bland-fest and he makes it vaguely worth listening to, even with the dull personal anecdotes (Hughesy’s wife bought him jeans that were too tight), crap phone-ins (should it be against the law to leave a toilet in a “disgraceful state”?), nasal whining (Hughesy’s teeth are eroding!), semi-tasteless competitions (text in with the sex of Kate’s baby and win tickets to Pink if it’s a girl or Green Day if it’s a boy), stupid stunts (Mick and Hughesy raced each other in the Nova 100 Gift, with the loser being zapped with an electric dog collar) and Ed Kavalee reminding you before and after every single song that Kate was on leave having a baby (as if the Murdoch press hadn’t drummed this fact into you by now).
As with Tony Martin’s Get This, Molloy rolls with the commercial radio cliches and subverts them as best he can, questioning them, taking the piss out of them and spicing them up where possible, bringing more laughs to Hughesy & Kate than anyone ever thought possible. Even Ed Kavalee’s there to spur Molloy on.
But, before you rush off to download the podcasts, don’t forget that this programme still contains that ultimate spectre of comedy doom: Dave Hughes. Hughes with his whiny voice, dead eyes and ability to make almost no one laugh yet still be described as a comedian, seems to be barely off TV or radio these days. He’s got Hughesy & Kate every morning, Before The Game on weekends and now The 7PM Project every night. Does he ever sleep? Or does he just lurch from studio to studio, grinding his way through commentaries on topical issues and going off on humour-free rants, like a surreal cross between a factory and a zombie.
Not even Mick Molloy in good form can defeat Hughesy, who, unsurprisingly, continues to dominate the show which bears his name. If Nova’s program director has any sense they’ll plump for comedy, and give Molloy a show with Ed Kavalee next year. But as any Get This fan knows, comedy isn’t what drives commercial radio, it’s crap songs and mindless yammer, meaning Mick Molloy (and his former comedy partner Tony Martin) are condemned to a life of guest appearances and fill-in slots, while the Dave Hughes comedy cyclone continues to reek its devastating havoc.
No so much a backflip as a Somers-assault
With hindsight the upcoming return of Hey Hey it’s Saturday to our screens (link) was obvious, an excrement-laden juggernaught bearing down on an unwilling nation like a strident university student’s clumsy rape metaphor. Some might like to console themselves with the knowledge that – as far as we know – there’s only going to be two one-hour specials (shown in the ratings deadzone of November no less), and that once our nation is reminded of just how dull Chooklotto, Red Faces, Molly’s Melodrama, Dickie Knee, et al actually are then hopefully this brief flirtation with recycled shite will pass.
(Then again, John Farnham keeps on keeping on despite having nothing new to give for the last two decades, and no doubt he’ll stop in for a chat with his old mate Daryl to give the ratings a boost.)
But we’d rather take a look at how this nightmare actually came about in the vain, desperate hope that by documenting the horror we might be able to avert a similar disaster next time. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we…
A): Daryl Somers. Usually when a show is axed, those involved go quietly. Partly because the battle is over, partly to safeguard what little chance they might have of being re-invited to the ball. Not Daryl. Over the last few years of Hey Hey’s run, when the show was clearly struggling to attract viewers who could stay awake into the second hour, Daryl was constantly out there talking about what a shame it would be for Hey Hey to not reach 30 years on air. He fought long and hard to keep it alive when even the on-air staff clearly didn’t give a shit, and when the axe finally fell he wasn’t afraid to go on the record about how disappointed he was in pretty much everyone but himself. The dirt had barely settled on the show’s grave when he started talking about a revival, slipping it into conversations about pretty much anything else, constantly talking about how good old fashioned variety needed to make a comeback to our screens – under his guiding hand, of course. Frankly, he wouldn’t shut the fuck up about bringing Hey Hey back despite a general indifference from everyone he spoke to. Well, everyone apart from…
B): Channel Nine: In ratings terms, they’re been struggling for years now. Reviving an old favourite isn’t exactly a difficult move to make, and when the host is basically camped on your front door begging to be let in, giving a revival the green light is a lot easier than having to have an actual idea. Of course, the time has to be right…
C): The Current Televisual Climate: with Thank God You’re Here rating solidly even after four series, and Talkin’ ‘bout Your Generation the second biggest hit (behind Master Chef) of 2009, clearly audiences are in the mood for a lot of lightweight piss-farting around in a semi-live format. Bad news for Nine is, those shows are on other networks and their attempt to cash in with Wipeout Australia made no impact whatsoever. But if bringing back Hey Hey is such an obvious move, what was the hold-up…
D): The Gavin Disney Sex Trial: as co-creator and producer of Hey Hey, (not to mention Somers’ manager) it would have been near-impossible to bring back Hey Hey in anything like its original form without his involvement. And it would have been difficult to secure his involvement if he’d been locked up for raping a teenage male employee. Fortunately for Somers and for Nine, on July 9th Disney was found not guilty of all charges. Barely a fortnight later, the Hey Hey revival was officially on. But still, did the public really want Hey Hey back…
E): The Herald Sun: barely a week after Disney’s acquittal Melbourne tabloid The Herald Sun suddenly seemed to find a Facebook group calling for the return of Hey Hey surprisingly newsworthy. The largest story on page three of the July 15th edition was headlined “Hey, hey – we want Saturday back”. And we quote: “FANS of legendary TV variety show Hey Hey its Saturday have launched a campaign to pressure a commercial network to bring the program out of hibernation”. By The Herald Sun’s own admission this Facebook page had been in existence for at least three months; why all the coverage now? And written not by some junior journo but by Darren Devlyn, editor of the Herald-Sun’s TV liftout?
It hardly seems likely that a busy man such as himself would spend his days cruising Facebook looking for sites calling for the return of long-axed Australian variety shows. So did someone bring it to his attention as a way to build public support for the show’s return? Maybe even Somers himself, who is quoted in the article and certainly wanted to bring Hey Hey back? Which raises yet another question: if this was basically a self-promotion exercise, why did this story get such a free kick in the Herald-Sun? The only two people quoted are Somers himself and the Facebook page’s creator, both calling for the show’s return; couldn’t they find a TV insider or Nine spokesperson to provide another angle? After all, this wasn’t a puff piece to fill a gap in the TV Guide – this was on page three of the nation’s biggest-selling tabloid and it reads like nothing more than a paid ad demanding the return of Hey Hey. And let’s not forget to follow-up news items that ran, letting us know that the Facebook groups numbers were growing off the back of the Herald-Sun’s efforts: barely a week later the paper reported that the group’s membership was well over 20,000, and a few days after that… well, now we’ve got new Hey Hey to look forward to.
Like we said, in hindsight it’s all so clear. And it’s not like Somers doesn’t have an extensive track record of playing the Melbourne media like a harp: if anyone out there can confirm or deny the rumours that Somers was the one pulling the strings (maybe directly, maybe he just had some media mates wanting to do him a solid) behind the media campaign that led to the axing of The Mick Molloy Show – a show broadcast in a Saturday night timeslot following Hey Hey during 1999 and clearly seen at the time as a possible replacement / threat to Somers – we’d love to hear from you…
The 9pm Project
One of the rarely mentioned but screamingly obvious factors behind the success of most of the ABC’s local comedy ventures over the last few years is the timeslot. No-one wants to point it out because it’s kind of embarrassing, but it’s about as close to a fact as you can get in television: being on at 9pm after Spicks & Specks sure doesn’t hurt.
First, some facts: Spicks & Specks rates extremely well across the nation and it starts at 8.30, which, thanks to the way Australian television generally works in prime time, is a changeover point. Everyone has a new show starting at 8.30, so if you want to change channels that’s the time to do it. Sure, plenty of people channel-surf once a show gets boring or the ads are on, and most networks try to get sneaky by having their shows drag on until 8.35 or so in the hope that’ll put people off changing (if you’ve missed the start on the other channel, why bother changing at all?). But generally speaking, if you’re going to lose or gain viewers in bulk, 8.30pm is the time when it’ll happen. And it doesn’t happen Wednesdays on the ABC at 8.30pm, because people like Spicks & Specks.
9pm – when shows like The Chaser’s War on Everything, The Librarians and The Gruen Transfer are on – is a different matter. Everywhere else is showing hour-long dramas in that timeslot, so if you’ve come for Spicks & Specks, unless you want to jump into a show that’s half over you’re going to stay for whatever’s next. Shows on the ABC at 9pm on Wednesdays don’t have to do the hard work of gaining a viewing audience, they just have to prevent the one Spicks & Specks delivers them from wandering off to check out YouTube. So it’s fairly safe to assume that the ABC is going to continue to have a string of home-grown comedy rating hits at 9pm right up until the moment people get sick of watching Spicks & Specks.
This old news is still news because at the moment there’s a rare opportunity to watch what happens when people with no idea what they’re doing attempt to engineer the same scheduling scenario. Over on Seven on Thursday nights we currently have Double Take at 8.30pm, and the Ed Kavalee-hosted TV Burp at 9pm. As mentioned earlier, Double Take is yet another flavourless yet gristle- packed sketch comedy sausage from the Comedy Inc abattoir – the kind of show that’s completely forgettable yet… nope, it’s just forgettable.
In contrast, while TV Burp has its flaws and plenty of them – a lot of the gags are weak, the pace drags and Kavalee can’t quite sell some of the sillier jokes in the way that, say, Shaun Micallef could – there’s a passion for television that comes through every now and then which grounds the show in a way that the slicker Double Take lacks. Kavalee seems like an actual person interested in television and in poking fun at it, which sounds obvious until you stop and think about how few TV presenters show any real emotion about what they’re doing on camera. That alone instantly makes him far more likable than most comedy figures doing the rounds (does Hughsie ever show any interest in anything past collecting a check?), and it’s amazing how important likability can be in making a show work. TV Burp is super-light entertainment that should probably be on when Funniest Home Videos is over, but on Seven’s Thursday night comedy double it’s the show that shows real potential.
Unfortunately, it’s also the one on at 9pm, and no-one’s going to tune in for it at 9pm. Double Take will more than likely suffer the exact same fate as every other commercially produced sketch comedy show since the turn of the century, and it’ll take TV Burp down with it. Which would be a shame: considering the seemingly vast number of clearly-insane people who want Hey Hey it’s Saturday to come back, a show with such a similar, gags-n-clips-and-general-silliness vibe should find a niche somewhere. Just not on Seven Thursdays at 9pm.
Double Take Take Two
Seven isn’t quite confident enough of this week’s new return to sketch comedy Double Take to send out full episodes to reviewers, but they have sent out discs featuring ten minutes worth of sketches to various media outlets and surprise surprise, one just happens to have fallen into our hands. Okay, “fallen” isn’t quite the right word –maybe “hurled” is a better description of the way one media type discarded this particular slice of prime Aussie comedy. And really, who could blame them? It’s basically the usual mix of celebrity impersonations, TV parodies and more traditional gag sketches, and to be fair at first glance it’s a slick but colourless effort with some good ideas on display. Which isn’t really that surprising when you look at the credits: there’s at least twenty writers listed (including Shaun Micallef’s regular co-conspirators Gary McCaffrie and Michael Ward and John Safran cohort Mark O’Toole), so someone’s bound to have had a good idea eventually. But as anyone who remembers The Wedge knows, these kind of sketch shows are usually driven by the head writer and executive producer (most of the writers listed in the credits would have only sent in a sketch or two), and that’s where the real fun begins.
You see, there are two kinds of comedy shows: the ones where a bunch of funny people get together to put on a show, and the ones where a network decides to order up some comedy for their schedules. The first group includes pretty much all the decent comedy of the last two decades, including Kath & Kim, John Clarke’s The Games, the work of The Chaser and Chris Lilley, and anything from Working Dog (Frontline, The Panel, Thank God You’re Here). The second group mostly includes shows that were quickly axed or died lingering deaths in late night timeslots, such as The Wedge, Comedy Inc, and the ill-fated Let Loose Live. And a quick look at Double Take‘s credits reveals that executive producer / director / co-creator David McDonald was a writer / producer on Comedy Inc for a number of years while head writer / co-creator Rick Kalowski was the head writer on Comedy Inc and the head writer on Seven’s short-lived (despite the presence of Chris Lilley) 2004 sketch show Big Bite.
So what we can expect here – especially as the cast are mostly inexperienced newcomers to TV comedy and therefore hardly likely to start throwing their own weight around – is pretty much Comedy Inc redux. And no doubt this is a calculated move on Seven’s behalf: with shows like Thank God You’re Here and Talkin’ ‘bout Your Generation (not to mention The Chaser) scoring big with comedy, clearly they feel that the time is right to revive the old sketch formula of celebrity impersonations and advertising parodies, TV send-ups and restaurant sketches. Bloody restaurant sketches.
But while more Australian comedy on our screens is pretty much always a plus, let’s just look at the negatives for a moment. For starters, this isn’t a formula that has actually worked all that well since the glory days of Fast Forward / Full Frontal in the late 80s and early 90s. The last decent sketch show this country’s produced – The Micallef P(r)ogramm(me), as if you didn’t know – featured almost no impersonations, no commercial / film parodies, and no send-ups of current television. That’s not to say the formula couldn’t work in the hands of people who believed in it or had something new to say, but after years helming Comedy Inc surely we would have seen some sign of it there. And… nope. Plenty of “hilarious” sketches involving a stuttering train saying “cunt” though.
On a more commercial front, didn’t anyone at Seven notice that this kind of manufactured comedy effort has failed time and time again in recent years? Remember The Wedge? Remember all two weeks of Let Loose Live? The Hamish & Andy Show? Even Big Bite, and that had Chris Lilley – that’s right, even with Chris Lilley playing Mr G it got the chop after the first series, which must say something about how popular this format is with audiences. For the last decade this kind of thing has been snubbed by audiences at first glance, and while it’s easy to spot why, why give that information away for free? Any TV execs reading this, feel free to email us. We’ve got PayPal accounts.
But wait a minute – didn’t Comedy Inc run for five seasons? Wasn’t there something like ninety hour-long episodes made? Surely that’s a sign of some kind of success? Maybe Seven had the right idea in hiring the brains behind Comedy Inc to run their new show – after all, they clearly made a go of their last sketch outing, right?
Uh, no. Whether the execs at Seven fell for that argument or not who knows. But what we do know is that for a large part of its run Comedy Inc was renewed not because Nine had any real confidence in the product – a product they kept shifting timeslots and dumping for weeks or months at a time before springing new episodes onto a clearly disinterested public, lets not forget. No, Comedy Inc kept coming back because in the early and mid-90s Nine has a serious problem meeting its Australia drama quotas. Seven and Ten had nightly soaps to boost their numbers, and Seven had a couple of prime-time dramas on the go as well, but Nine had nothing apart from McLeod’s Daughters, and that wasn’t enough to get them over the line. A line, by the way, they had to get over as part of their licensing conditions. And so, with Comedy Inc cheap to make, already up and running, and somehow classified as a drama (well, it sure wasn’t a comedy), Nine just kept on churning it out until they finally started producing the real stuff around 2007.
Of course, none of this is to say that Seven’s gamble won’t pay off. But where pretty much all the hit comedies of the last two decades have offered us charm and insight on top of the jokes, Double Take gives us Paul McCarthy doing the exact same Kochie impersonation he did on Comedy Inc. It wasn’t all that funny the first time: exactly what does Seven think has changed since then to make this a ratings winner?
Sometimes dead is better
So Daryl Somers wants to bring Hey Hey It’s Saturday back- well, according to The Herald-Sun he does, on the back of a Facebook campaign to revive the ill-lamented series (here). Yawn. Okay, first there’s a searing burst of unadulterated rage that this kind of rubbish story even sees print, especially as the hard-hitting news team at The Herald-Sun failed to even find someone actually gainfully employed in television to provide some insight on whether Daryl’s dream could possibly ever come true. Presumably they did ask someone, but they were laughing too hard at the idea to croak out a useable quote. But after that… well, yawn.
The reason why this is a non-story no matter how badly Daryl wants to waste others money and our time reliving his glory days is simple: Hey Hey lives amongst us. Or at least, the segments and elements that people actually want to watch – which obviously don’t involve Daryl – are still around us today. For example, the number one reason people give for wanting Hey Hey back (and we’ve sat on enough buses and trains next to people reading news stories in which Daryl says “bring back Hey Hey” to know) is to give people something to watch on a Saturday night before they go out. But such a show already exists and it’s name is Australia’s Funniest Home Videos. After all, roughly 40% of the last two decades or so of Hey Hey was viewers’ letters and funny signs: what else is AFHV but more of the same?
Then there’s the arguement that Hey Hey was a great venue to give local bands and comedians media exposure. Two words sum up the 21st century replacement: Rove… meh. But that’s beside the point – Rove does what Hey Hey did for local / international acts, and does it better (mostly because you don’t hear Rove complaining that a band played a different song live from the one they did in rehersal and thus would never be allowed back). You want variety? There’s everything from Australian Idol to Dancing with the Stars for that. That ramshackle, freewheeling vibe that Hey Hey had going for it before Daryl turned into a grim spectre of comedy death lives on in shows like Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation, Thank God You’re Here and Spicks & Specks. You miss Red Faces? Just watch the first few episodes of Australian Idol each year. And so on and so forth and whatever.
The point of all this is that when Daryl says he wants to bring back Hey Hey, don’t be fooled. Even he must know that every single thing his old show did that was worth keeping lives on. No, Daryl wants Hey Hey back because Daryl wants to come back as the boss of a show where he can do whatever the hell he likes. It may just be a rumour, but the story that Daryl quit his comeback success as host of Dancing with the Stars because Seven (Stars’ home) wouldn’t give him a Hey Hey-style variety show but Nine hinted they would remains sadly plausible. And we say “sadly” because if true, it seems likely that Nine basically told Daryl “quit Stars, then we’ll talk about bringing Hey Hey back”, and once Daryl did what they said… well, at least Nine got what they wanted.
Think about that for a moment: if true, Daryl wants Hey Hey back so desperately badly he was willing to quit being the host of a top-rating show – a gig anyone else at his stage of their career would kill for – for the chance to bring it back. You’d have to admire such passion and commitment – if only Hey Hey wasn’t such a steaming pile of televisual dung for the last decade or so of its run, a naked and calculated insult to the viewing audiences intelligence and sense of shared humanity, a weekly two hour stain on our screens that even a decade on still lingers. Basically, Daryl wants the chance to strut and preen and gloat in front of the nation one more time, providing viewers with absolutely nothing else that they can’t already watch – and watch done better – elsewhere. It’s not news, it’s not sport, it’s not weather, and it doesn’t deserve the briefest slice of time or space in our nation’s media. Move on folks, nothing to see here.
(now, if it was John Blackman calling for Hey Hey’s return, maybe we”d listen…)
Gavan Disney’s wood
It’s long been an article of faith that the only Australian showbiz book better than a warts-n-all look behind the scenes of Hey Hey It’s Saturday’s 20-odd year run would be Tony Martin’s occasionally mentioned (and most likely a gag) examination of MMM management Wankers Away! But that was until the Gavan Disney sex trial.
For those not in the know, as the producer of Hey Hey Disney worked hand in glove with host Daryl Somers week in week out crushing the dreams of anyone who hoped prime-time entertainment in Australia could feature more than just a dead-eyed vicious host focusing his increasingly autocratic gaze on a pack of terrified underlings before cutting to a segment about vaguely smutty roadsigns. It seemed sort of reasonable to assume that Disney was the good cop in their double act – well, it’s not as if there could have been a worse cop than Somers, whose reputation for a uniquely vile brand of self-centered entitlement lives on to this day – until Disney was charged late in 2008 with sexually assaulting a teenage cameraman back in the early 1980s.
Those of you who’ve been following the news know that Disney was subsequently acquitted of all charges. So the court reports that follow are for entertainment purposes only. As is often the case, what makes these now officially false accusations so entertaining is their extremely specific nature. Think about it: someone had to sit down and actually make this stuff up. And not just about anyone – about the producer of “much-loved” variety show Hey Hey It’s Saturday, a show that in its 20 year run came to symbolise a certain kind of family entertainment that mostly involved low-level smut, thinly veiled abuse, a guy in a duck suit dry-humping members of the band, and absolutely no role for women past singing “folks are dumb where I come from” and giggling at Daryl’s jokes.
In recent years Hey Hey has undergone a minor revival amongst those barely in their teens when it was finally pulled off the air. Nostalgia no doubt plays a part. But watching selected clips on YouTube or on DVD doesn’t begin to convey the grim, arrogant attitude that radiated off the screen whenever Hey Hey was on the air. It became a show that was proud of its rubbish segments and tired gags, a show made by people who firmly believed they didn’t have to give a shit what people wanted to watch: you’ll watch a grim control freak giving his death stare to anyone who dares step on one of his gags and you’ll like it.
Too harsh? Doubtful: after it was announced that Hey Hey was ending after 28 years, Daryl proudly said that hearing Tom Jones and John Farnham ad-libbing My Yiddish Momma “was one of the most magical pieces of television ever”. Mostly because it happened on his show. A show that Disney produced week in, week out, a backstage Himmler to Daryl’s comedy Hitler. “Ve haff ways of making you laff” was never more threatening.
Anyway, despite Daryl’s seemingly ceaseless efforts to bring Hey Hey back (including an embarassing on-stage plea during the Logies, for Christ’s sake), that’s all in the past now. But always after a big trial, some questions remains unanswered. What was Dick Emery’s role in all this? Is shaving cream a traditional masturbation aid? And will there be a funnier line in Australian comedy in 2009 than this one: “The jury heard the complainant, now 47, gave conflicting descriptions of Disney’s car interior, the garden of his Melbourne home and his penis.”
For the answers to almost none of those questions, read on. And remember: Disney was, as mentioned earlier, found innocent in a court of law… but guilty in a court of hilarity*
(*not an actual court)
Hey, Hey creator Disney to stand trial on rape charges (The Age, December 19, 2008)
Television identity Gavan Disney has been committed to stand trial over allegations of sexual assault against a teenage boy more than 20 years ago.
Disney, the co-creator of the Nine Network’s long-running program Hey Hey It’s Saturday, faces 15 charges relating to the abuse of a teenager he worked with at Ballarat television station BTV6 in the early 1980s.
Disney’s former BTV6 colleague Frederick Fargher told Ballarat Magistrates Court today Disney had been “mildly infatuated” with the teenager. “I always had the impression Gavan favoured him a bit. He really liked him,” he said.
Mr Fargher said Disney asked him to attend drinks in a dressing room because he wanted to get the teenager’s pants off but didn’t want him to be suspicious. Mr Fargher said he was shocked to enter the dressing room and see the teenager naked with Disney fondling his genitals.
Mr Fargher had also been charged with indecently assaulting the teenager, but the single count was dropped in August when he agreed to give evidence against Disney, 59, of Toorak.
In a statement tendered to the court the alleged victim, now in his 40s, said he was intimidated by Disney. “After the dressing room incident I remember being terrified of being misunderstood and the threat of losing my job,” he said. The man said Disney went out of his way to make him believe he was somebody he was not and called him a “poofter”. “Some other jibes I can recall are, `gee, you’re a good kisser’, `you’ve got nice skin’ and `didn’t you know you were gay’,” he said. The man said Disney first assaulted him when he was drunk. “The acts occurred sporadically, but when they did they were forceful. They were not overly violent,” he said. “They were, however, invasive, unprovoked and defying vocal and physical protest from me.”
Disney is charged with 13 counts of indecent assault and two counts of rape. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. The matter was adjourned for a directions hearing in the County Court in Melbourne on February 10.
That’s showbiz’, rape trial told (The Age, June 30, 2009)
Co-creator of the hit television show Hey Hey It’s Saturday, Gavan Disney, repeatedly assaulted a teenage colleague almost 30 years ago, telling him “it’s all part of show business”, a jury has heard.
Disney, the former executive producer of the long-running Nine Network program, is fighting accusations he assaulted the teenager while he was employed at Ballarat television station BTV6.
On the first day of his County Court trial, the jury heard that Disney would squeeze the teen’s genitals, kiss him, force him to perform oral sex and, on one occasion, fondled his genitals with shaving foam.
The incidents allegedly took place between 1980 and 1983, soon after the youth joined the station as a 17-year-old, prosecutor Kieran Gilligan said.
Disney, 60, has pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of indecent assault and two of rape. His lawyers said Disney denied the allegations and never touched the boy sexually.
Mr Gilligan outlined several incidents in which Disney allegedly assaulted the teen, now 47. He said Disney painted the incidents in a flippant light, saying: “It’s all part of show business.” Mr Gilligan said the teen felt ashamed and embarrassed and feared losing his job. The teen left the Ballarat station in 1981 after getting a job in Melbourne. He reluctantly agreed to meet Disney, who was then producing Hey Hey and managing its star, Daryl Somers, the court was told. Mr Gilligan said the abuse continued in Melbourne.
Mr Gilligan said Disney’s former BTV6 colleague, Frederick Fargher, would testify that Disney had a sexual interest in the teenager. Defence barrister Terry Forrest, QC, said the claims were fabricated. The trial, in Ballarat, continues today.
Former TV host witnessed abuse: court (NineMSN, July 2, 2009)
A former colleague of television identity Gavan Disney has testified that he watched him fondle and abuse a junior colleague.
Former Ballarat television presenter Frederick Fargher told the Victorian County Court Disney invited him for drinks in a television station dressing room and said he wanted to get into a co-worker’s “pants”. Mr Fargher said Disney told him: “I’m going to get into (his) pants tonight and I want you to be there so it’ll look less suspicious”. Mr Fargher said Disney would often play the fool and he wasn’t sure if he was serious. “I remember saying: ‘Oh Gavan’,” he told the court. “He just said: ‘Just do it’ and he walked away.”
Disney, the co-creator of the Nine Network’s long-running program Hey Hey It’s Saturday, is fighting accusations he assaulted a teenager with whom he worked at Ballarat television station BTV6 almost 30 years ago. The 60-year-old has pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of indecent assault and two of rape over alleged incidents relating to the person.
The jury has heard the abuse began soon after the alleged victim joined the station in 1980, aged 17. Mr Fargher said he went with Disney to the dressing room and the alleged victim soon joined them. Both Disney and the complainant were drinking alcohol and were joking, he said. Mr Fargher alleged Disney “mildly encouraged” the teenager to keep drinking and repeatedly asked him to take off his pants. “I was a bit worried that he was serious about it,” Mr Fargher said.
He said Disney pulled the teenager onto his lap and again said: “C’mon, take your pants off”. The alleged victim agreed, saying: “Okay Gavan, if it means that much to you”. The teenager removed his clothes and Disney began fondling his genitals, Mr Fargher said. During the incident, Disney told the complainant: “Gee, you’ve got a great body,” he said. Disney then fondled the teenager’s genitals with shaving cream, before the boy vomited onto the carpet.
Mr Fargher said Disney then told the alleged victim: “If you’re going to throw up, go to the toilet”.
The alleged victim did not object and he himself remained quiet during the incident, Mr Fargher said. Mr Fargher, who is now retired, was questioned in 2004 and also charged with sexual offences after the alleged victim made similar abuse claims but the charges were later withdrawn.
Under cross examination, he denied abusing or having any sexual interest in the alleged victim. He also denied lying about what happened to become a police witness and avoid charges. “As God is my witness, I am not,” he said. Mr Fargher said he was unaware the teenager had not complained of a shaving cream incident. He also denied being motivated by a professional vendetta toward Disney whom he believed had wanted to sack him from BTV6.
Mr Fargher said Disney tended to favour the teenager over other employees. He added the boy also liked the attention. “He liked being Gavan’s number one boy,” he said. Mr Fargher said Disney remarked many times on how attractive the alleged victim was and how he fancied him. The trial, in Ballarat in central Victoria, continues on Friday.
Gavan Disney Sex Trial Hears Of Pants- Off Request (The Herald-Sun, July 03, 2009)
A WITNESS in the sex trial of Hey Hey It’s Saturday producer Gavan Disney told a court the alleged victim liked to be considered “Gavan’s number one boy”.
Former BTV6 compere Frederick Fargher told a County Court sitting in Ballarat yesterday that Mr Disney often described the alleged victim as attractive, and fondled the young TV employee with shaving cream in a studio dressing room one night. Mr Fargher, 69, said Mr Disney hired the alleged victim — who can’t be named — because he believed young people from Melbourne were “more worldly”.
He told the court Mr Disney, at times an amusing and charming man who drank scotch whisky and ice, told him he wanted to get into the young man’s pants. Mr Fargher worked with Mr Disney — a former talent manager who became the BTV6 production manager — when he compered an open-ended Thursday night chat show, Six Tonight. He said the program showcased local and international talent, including British comedian Dick Emery.
He told the court that one night in the early 1980s while in his office, Mr Disney appeared with drink in hand and told him there were drinks on in his dressing room after recording. Mr Fargher said that while all three drank alcohol, Mr Disney asked the young man to take his pants off. “I was worried that he was serious about it,” Mr Fargher said. Eventually the young man undressed and Mr Disney tried to masturbate him with the shaving cream, the court was told.
Under cross-examination from Peter Morrissey, QC, Mr Fargher denied he made up the dressing room incident. Mr Fargher described the man as being a “confident and ambitious” young employee back in the 1980s at BTV6. “He liked being Gavan’s number one boy,” he said.
Mr Disney, 60, has pleaded not guilty to committing 13 acts of indecent assault and two acts of rape. On Monday the court was told Mr Disney sexually assaulted the young man several times, telling him it was “all part of showbusiness”. Prosecutor Kieran Gilligan alleged sex crimes — including fondling, kissing and oral sex — happened at the BTV6 studio and other places including Mr Disney’s home and his car between 1980 and 1983. Mr Gilligan alleged the last of the assaults occurred when both men were working at Channel 9 in Melbourne where Mr Disney went on to produce Hey Hey while managing the show’s host, Daryl Somers.
Defence counsel Terry Forrest, QC, told the jury Mr Disney strenuously denied ever touching the alleged victim sexually in any way. The trial, before Judge Paul Lacava continues.
Disney cleared of sex assault charges (The Age, July 9, 2009)
Gavan Disney, a producer of the long-running TV show Hey Hey It’s Saturday, has walked free from court after being cleared of raping and assaulting a junior employee 30 years ago.
Disney, 60, was accused of assaulting the worker while he held an executive role at Ballarat television station BTV6 in the early 1980s. It was alleged at his County Court trial Disney fondled the complainant’s genitals, kissed him and forced him to have oral sex soon after the junior joined the station as a 17-year-old, telling him it was “all part of show business”.
But today, a jury acquitted Disney of 10 counts of indecent assault and two of rape after a day of deliberations. After the verdict, Disney hugged his wife and family members, telling reporters outside court he was “very happy” with the outcome.
Prosecutor Kieran Gilligan had alleged Disney, then aged about 30, escalated his assaults against the teenager when he knew he would not complain. He alleged Disney assaulted the teenager at work, in his car and at other places and taunted him with comments such as, “You’re a poofter” and “Didn’t know you were gay”. He said the assaults were usually accompanied by alcohol and the complainant feared losing his job if he spoke up.
But on the witness stand, Disney denied being infatuated with the complainant and rejected all allegations. Disney described his accuser as a keen and eager worker, but said he never gave him preferential treatment. “He showed potential and he was given an opportunity,” he said. Disney denied using his power to take sexual advantage of the complainant and any fear he had of losing his job. “I’m telling the truth and (he) was not a quiet retiring type,” he said.
Disney agreed he met the complainant in 1994 after they both moved to Melbourne. But he denied his accuser confronted him over the allegations at this meeting, saying it was because he wanted a job. “He had been through a bad time. I thought he looked a little unwell,” Disney said. “I felt he wasn’t up to being employed by me.”
Former Ballarat television presenter Frederick Fargher testified he saw Disney fondle the teenager’s genitals with shaving cream in a television station dressing room. Before the incident, he alleged Disney told him: “I’m going to get into (his) pants tonight and I want you to be there so it’ll look less suspicious.” Mr Fargher said Disney had expressed a sexual interest in the complainant and tended to favour him over other workers. The complainant also “liked being Gavan’s number one boy”, he said.
Mr Fargher was originally charged over similar allegations involving the complainant but this was dropped when he agreed to testify against Disney. He denied being motivated by a professional vendetta against Disney and denied lying to avoid charges himself. The jury heard the complainant, now 47, gave conflicting descriptions of Disney’s car interior, the garden of his Melbourne home and his penis.
Disney’s wife Margaret Disney described the complainant as a confident and happy man. She said her husband’s employees looked up to him and respected him. Judge Paul Lacava last week instructed the jury to find Disney not guilty on three further indecent assault charges due to lack of evidence.
Great Australian Comedy Mysteries of the 20th Century #1: Shaun Micallef on Comic Relief 1999
Big comedy fans like myself usually have a list of Holy Grails; bits of footage we’d like to see and facts we’d like to confirm. Finding that footage or getting to the bottom of a particular story can become an obsession. I myself have spent countless hours trying to find out more about one particularly intriguing piece of footage involving a well known comedian – even going so far as to cajole my other half into searching through an entire year of newspapers in order to find out more about it – but I’ll tell you about that some other time.
Back in 2006 a person on a forum I frequented asked whether it was true that Shaun Micallef had appeared on Comic Relief in 1999. Comic Relief, if you don’t know, is a biannual telethon/spectacular which airs on the BBC and involves as many comedy and entertainment stars as can be herded into BBC Television Centre on the night. There’s music, pre-recorded specials of popular programmes and live sketches, and viewers are encouraged to call in and pledge money to support Comic Relief projects in the UK and overseas. This year more than £57million was raised on the night.
In order to confirm whether Micallef had appeared on the show in 1999 or not, I went straight to the BBC’s INFAX database, which lists, among others things, who appeared in what programme. INFAX was then available online as an experimental prototype, and was being hammered by TV enthusiasts. Whether it will become publicly available again I don’t know, but my fingers are crossed.
Anyway, I typed in Micallef’s name but found he was not listed. Then I typed in Comic Relief 1999, but did not spot Micallef in the cast list. I concluded that Shaun Micallef had not been in the show – it seemed pretty unlikely anyway – and totally forgot about it.
But Viv, the UK’s number one Shaun Micallef fan, got in touch the other day and reminded me of it. This footage is Viv’s Holy Grail: she remembers seeing – it’s what got her into Shaun Micallef – and she even had it on tape at one point, but lent it to someone years ago, and they never returned it. Since then she’s been trying to track down the footage and has asked countless comedy fans if they have it, to no avail.
Viv says that Micallef was not live in the studio (which would explain why he’s not listed on INFAX), but that the sketch was existing footage that was played on the night. The Micallef Programme started to air on the Paramount Comedy Channel (a UK satellite channel) a few weeks later, so it’s likely it is something from that show which Paramount supplied to the BBC to play on Comic Relief.
The sketch itself was an audience participation segment, involving Melbourne and a map, which didn’t quite go to plan, concluding with Micallef having a stand-up argument with an audience member (played, Viv thinks, by Wayne Hope). Viv remembers that the Comic Relief studio audience didn’t laugh much at the sketch and appeared not to get the joke. She suggests that Jonathan Ross’ introduction, which was along the lines of: “We know you’re all looking forward to Alan Partridge… [audience start cheering, thinking he’s about to come on] …but in the meantime here’s the Australian version, Shaun Micallef…”, can’t have helped matters.
But what is most intriguing about the sketch is that it doesn’t appear to have aired anywhere else. Was this footage from a Micallef Programme pilot, which somehow made it to the UK? Was the sketch specifically filmed for Comic Relief? Was it some kind of promo footage, filmed to sell the show overseas? Or had it been shot for series one or two, but never made the final edit? Either way, the footage is not on any of the three Micallef Programme DVDs, and absolutely no one seems to remember it.
The other problem with tracking down the footage is that none of the various UK comedy fans I know (all prolific recorders of this kind of thing) have the footage, although one was able to tell me that Alan Partridge came on at exactly 9pm, meaning this sketch would have gone to air before then.
So, here’s the first of many appeals for footage I’ll be making on this blog (because if you can’t use your blog to put a dent in your Holy Grails list, what’s the point of having one?): Did you record any of Comic Relief 1999? If so, please check the tape and get in touch. Viv (and I) will be eternally grateful.
Double Take? More like spit take
With the looming arrival of Seven’s new old-style sketch show Double Take, there’s bound to be a resurgance of the view that, while Double Take itself might be rubbish, at least it’s providing a valuable training ground for the comedians of the future. Shaun Micallef and Eric Bana came from Full Frontal, after all, and Big Bite gave Chris Lilley’s career a big push forward.
Seems almost reasonable when it’s put that way. But in all the excitement over the new age of comedy that’ll no doubt be dawning over the next few weeks (and no, we haven’t forgotten Ed Kavalee’s upcoming TV Burp either), here’s a bucket of cold water: Comedy Inc (The Late Shift) ran for five full seasons. That’s 95 one hour doses of sketch comedy that showed no noticable improvement at all at any stage. There were no classic sketches, no break-out stars, and no mesaurable benefit gained from its existance by anyone except those cashing a paycheck from the production company. In fact, the closest thing to a success that it generated over those five seasons was Paul McCarthy’s notoriously weak Kochie impression… which is back as part of Double Take.
Of course, Double Take just might be brilliant – we haven’t seen it yet. But if it turns out to be the dull, tired collection of weak celebrity impressions and aimless sketches that the promos promise… well, in Australian comedy behind every cloud is another cloud that’s exactly the friggin’ same.