Top 50 Ahead of the Curve: Entertainment
Andrew Fenton on the breakthrough moments in TV and cinema.
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They're the entertainers and presenters that broke new ground, the movies and shows that changed popular culture. In this final chapter of a series celebrating pioneers, Andrew Fenton looks at breakthrough moments in the dynamic world of entertainment.
The Story of the Kelly Gang
Film
The first narrative feature film made anywhere in the world was produced in Australia. The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906), written and directed by Charles Tait, became a worldwide hit. It was made just a decade after Lumiere Brothers demonstrated cinema for the first time in Australia at the Athanaeum in Melbourne’s Collins Street in 1896.
The Jazz Singer
Talkies
Al Jolson’s famous line in The Jazz Singer in 1927, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet” heralded the introduction of sound to the cinema, sweeping away most of the established stars of the silent era. In Australia, the first sound films were made by Melbourne’s Efftee Studios four years later: Diggers, A Co-respondent’s Course and The Haunted Barn (all in 1931).
Bruce Gyngell
TV
Bruce Gyngell is widely credited as being the first person to appear on Australian TV with his famous line “Good evening, and welcome to television” on 16 September 1956. However several hundred people had already appeared in test broadcasts. TV was introduced to Australia for the Melbourne Olympics. With sets costing as much as a small car, it took some time to become commonplace with just five per cent of Melbourne households and one per cent of Sydney households owning a TV that year.
Moon landing
Live TV
“The greatest show in the history of television” occurred on July 20, 1969 when hundreds of millions of people watched the Apollo 11 moon landing exactly 1.3 seconds after it happened — the time it takes for light to travel to the Earth. The pictures were picked up by two Australian satellite dishes and beamed to the rest of the world. Forty years on, in 2009, NASA Television was awarded an Emmy award for engineering excellence to honour the technological innovations that made the broadcast possible.
Number 96
Scandalous soap
Although Homicide was the first major Aussie TV drama (and became the longest running in prime time), it was the racy Number 96 which documented the changing face of our society. Launched by an almost bankrupt Channel 10 suffering low ratings (sound familiar?) the show included the first gay kiss, the first bare breasts in prime time and the first bomb explosion cliffhanger. Its premiere was described as “the night Australian TV lost its virginity”.
Star Wars
Film Franchise
The world of cinema changed forever on May 25, 1977 with the release of the phenomenally successful Star Wars which set the template for the big budget special effects extravaganzas and franchises that dominate the screen today.
Crocodile Dundee
Aussie icon
While Australian cinema had produced occasional hits, such as the Mad Max films, it wasn’t until Paul Hogan uttered the immortal line, “That’s not a knife — THAT’S a knife” in Crocodile Dundee in 1986 that the country produced a genuine worldwide box-office blockbuster. And that’s what Hogan, thinking big, had set out to do. The second highest grossing film of the year internationally, its $328 million equates to around three quarters of a billion dollars in today’s money.
The Moonlight State
Investigation
Chris Masters’ 1987 Four Corners report The Moonlight State about corruption in Queensland set the gold standard for investigative TV journalism in this country and resulted in the end of Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s 18-year rule of Queensland. The program sparked the Fitzgerald Inquiry (Bjelke-Petersen was out of the state and his deputy gave it the go-ahead) which directly resulted in two by-elections, the jailing of three former ministers and a police commissioner, and led to the end of the National Party’s 32 year run in government.
Gulf War coverage
24-hour news
New technology allowed viewers to feel as if they were on the frontlines of the first Gulf War as the bombs fell on Iraq in 1990-1991 following its invasion of Kuwait. CNN broadcast live from Baghdad and the media broadcast US army-supplied night vision footage and live pictures of missiles hitting their targets. Many in the media felt the coverage was highly stage managed, with the US Army having been burnt by the unfavourable reporting in Vietnam.
YouTube
Mass media
Created by three former PayPal employees in 2005, YouTube changed the face of online entertainment (not to mention music distribution, social activism and citizen journalism among other things). Not only is the video sharing service the world’s largest repository of footage (and funny cat videos), it also meant that for the first time anyone with a video camera could easily get their message to the entire world.
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