Fifteen Minutes of Fame

The Party's Over.

The following is an edited article taken from the Herald Sun newspaper on Sunday November 21st, 1999 and written by Brian Courtis. The article was titled 'The Party's Over'.

Why last night, when Hey Hey it's Saturday bowed out with more than three hours of colour, movement and memories, was there just a little lump in the throat and a dampness in the corner of the eyes? Hey Hey, surely we're not going to get sentimental about a silly old TV show, are we?

Daryl Somers describes it as the end of an era. And it is, because we were there. With the dumping of Australian televisions last big variety show after 28 years, we've all been reminded of the time that has gone by. This was the tv show that we grew up with, the one that introduced us to other dags and other stars.

The bubbly Jacki MacDonald joined them to spend 10 years on the show as co-host. Wilbur Wilde and Red Symons added their musical talents and more than a dash of comedy in the early 80's and in 1983, Daryl Somers won his first Gold Logie.

New segments like Red Faces were introduced; Red Symons made its villainous gong pounding judge. Ian 'Molly' Meldrum, who had made the mumbled interview an art form on Countdown, began battling Dicky Knee in Molly's Melodrama. The show became a fast-moving montage of comedy, music, chat and panel show. And in came the stars ... Jon Bon Jovi, Madonna, Tom Jones, Kylie Minogue, Jimmy Barnes, the Eurythmics, anyone who wanted to attract a cluey audience.

Hey Hey had been attracting weekly audiences of 1.2 million, with more than 400,000 tuning in in Melbourne alone when the show was axed.

 

Excited.

I had been counting down the days to the show. It was obvious I was excited. On that Saturday morning I had spent just over an hour ironing my clothes and removing any specs of fluff from the material.

I was one of the many kids who grew up with this television show. My family had moved to Melbourne from the nation's capital, Canberra, late in 1973. Dad had recently retired from the Air Force and after sometime in a motel during the relocation period, we finally moved into a house with the back fence bordering a railway station in Mount Waverley. Hey Hey it's Saturday had been on Australian television for two years. The original hosts had been Daryl Somers and legendary Collingwood footballer Peter McKenna, the latter being replaced by a pink ostrich named Ossie when he left the show in 1972.

By early 1974, our family had moved into our biggest residence yet and along with that our old black and white TV moved aside for colour. The first thing I recall seeing in 'living colour' was the cartoon character Spiderman. For some reason I had always thought the crime fighter wore a green and yellow suit and I was surprised to learn it was actually blue and red! After the Spiderman cartoon on came Hey Hey it's Saturday at 8:00am. I was only nine years old, you got up early on Saturday mornings back then.

By 1976, the United States of America was turning two hundred, Hey Hey it's Saturday was turning five, I was turning eleven and Nadia Comaneci was turning ten's at the Montreal Olympics. It was my final year in primary school. Next I was to spend my higher education at a private school whose motto was interpreted from Latin to mean 'faithful even unto death'. As an adult, I find that motto still rather dramatic for a student to comprehend in terms of their schooling.

Hey Hey it's Saturday was going through transformations too, most of them unscripted. Many of the cartoons, including Spiderman, had been dropped from the shows format and John Blackman, Hey Hey's booth announcer, was producing more character voices like the Angel, Mrs MacGillacuddy and eventually Dickie Knee. Back then it was unusual for a booth announcer to make any comment, except in taking viewers out to a commercial break, but Hey Hey it's Saturday was an unusual show.