Kamahl questioned over timing of Hey Hey criticism

TV funnyman Kamahl says he “kept smiling” when he was the butt of race-themed jokes on Hey Hey It’s Saturday. But John Blackman asks why he didn’t speak out sooner.

Hey Hey It’s Saturday stalwart John Blackman has revealed that he now cringes at some of the stunts, gags and behaviour that went to air on the legendary TV show.

But, the TV funnyman has questioned why Kamahl did not raise concerns over his treatment on the show at the time that the episodes that have now been labelled racist and humiliating went to air.

Respected singer Kamahl has spoken out about times on Hey Hey when he was the butt of insensitive, race-themed jokes and a particularly shocking moment in 1984 when he was hit in the face with a powder-puff putting him in whiteface.

Legendary entertainer Kamahl. Picture: Tim Hunter

At that time, Blackman, who did Hey Hey’s voice-overs, quipped: “You’re a real white man now, Kamahl, you know that?”

Kamahl told The Guardian on Saturday that he often felt “humiliated” when appearing on Hey Hey and described the powder puff incident as “quite offensive”.

He said he didn’t realise the show was “going to be a minefield, of sorts” and that he “kept smiling and pretending all was OK”.

Blackman took to Facebook on Saturday to ask why Kamahl had not asked him to stop the quips at the time, adding the show was filmed in a less enlightened era.

“Goodness me Kamahl, 37 years and you’re still ‘humiliated’,” Blackman wrote.

“You knew where my booth was.

“If you felt so aggrieved by my “quip” you should have had marched up to it, had a quiet word in my ear and I would have desisted from making any further “racist” remarks forever.

“Keep in mind, we were all performing in less-enlightened (unintended pun) times back in the day and, when I look back over my career on HHIS (Hey Hey via You Tube), I sometimes cringe at what we got away with — but none of it with any intended malice.”

John Farnham, Daryl Somers and Kamahl on Hey Hey It’s Saturday.

Blackman recalled another time when Kamahl had pulled him up about a joke that he took offence to that Blackman had used at a charity gig.

A chorus of anti Hey Hey voices emerged after Daryl Somers told the Sunday Herald Sun last week, “You probably could not get away with half the stuff you could on Hey Hey now because of the political correctness and the cancel culture.”

The show, which in October will mark 50 years since its launch, aired for a total of 30 years on Channel 9.

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