PETER KOHN
A RATINGS figure more than double that of rival Ten’s kitchen reality series Masterchef, has shown Nine that bringing back the live variety cult classic, Hey, Hey, It’s Saturday (albeit on a Wednesday night) for a reunion special last week, was a great idea.
Perhaps the decision to axe the hugely popular Hey, Hey in 1999, because it was flagging somewhat in the ratings, was one of those shortsighted blunders that collectively led to Nine’s demise as the big banana of Aussie TV, a decline explored by Gerald Stone’s tell-all book, Who Killed Channel Nine?
Sure, live variety is expensive, and it can reach saturation level quickly, with viewers inclined not to feel too bad about missing an edition, or parts of an edition, while they wouldn’t dream of missing a minute of a Rafters or Neighbours episode.
Cheap reality fare is far better budgeted as fodder for the easily distracted viewers of today -– with their eyes on their internets, iPhones and Twitters.
But live variety, essentially vaudeville on the tube, is what Studio Nine at Bendigo Street did best in the Dreamtime years of local TV, and what made Nine live up to its moniker of Television City, the flagship of Aussie telly.
In fact, Hey, Hey began on Melbourne TV on Saturday mornings in 1971 as a kind of posthumous salute to kids’ live variety TV of the 1960s, which itself was a kiddie version of that great formula that made Graham Kennedy the King and Bert Newton the Crown Prince of the small tube.
Once upon a time, in the early 1960s, there was a highly popular children’s show called The Tarax Show. With rival The Happy Show (on Seven), it dominated the 5 pm slot on weekdays. But when children’s variety TV faded in the mid-1960s, The Tarax Show was put out to pasture on Saturday mornings, and eventually got the axe.
But Nine bosses knew that running an endless loop of Looney Tunes cartoons needed some local leavening, and a smart youngster named Daryl Somers got a break in front of the camera with a hand-puppet named Ossie Ostrich (operated by an unseen genius named Ernie Carroll).
That was in the late 1960s, and by 1971, the Daryl-Ossie shtick between the cartoons had attracted enough of a following to be launched as its own show – and Hey, Hey was born. It had a long life, and in 1984 made it into Saturday night primetime, where it really took off.
Wednesday’s show was true to the Hey Hey concept — based on simple stuff – gunshot oneliners, rock vocalists and bands with boomer appeal, razor-sharp sendups (like Disaster Chef, which poked fun at Hey Hey’s competitor on Wednesday night), and ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ regular segments like the Red Faces talent quest.
Add in a coterie of personalities, like Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum, Wilbur Wilde, Russell Gilbert, John Blackman and Red Symons. Livinia Nixon is the latest in a string of female sidekicks, some more wacky than others. Nixon, for her part, plays a kind of straight-chick foil to the boys’ burblings, some of them saucy, very occasionally even borderline smutty – but look how downright carnal the rest of television has become, and you realise Hey, Hey is just good fun, and almost as harmless as a seniors’ card night.
Okay, it’s Melbourne-centric and it isn’t reality TV – and there’s a risk that the Gen X and Y demographics (teens, 20- and 30-somethings) may not drop everything to watch, but given the crap that’s dominated Australian TV in the 10 years since Hey, Hey was axed, it looks pretty good.
In fact, as American comic maestro Larry David might say, “Pretty, pretty, pretty good!” So good, in fact, that Nine is now pondering a return of a regular Hey, Hey show.
Perhaps the network is looking to win back its wayward middle-aged viewers, especially now that it has GO!, a separate digital channel that can keep younger viewers contented. If that’s so, relaunching Hey, Hey, half a dozen shows a year would be great, is a step in the right direction.
Peter Kohn is the AJN’s Features Editor based in Melbourne and the author of two novels, Rachel’s Chance and View From A Sandcastle.
