Matthew Guy’s ex chief of staff the butt of a Sam Pang joke in the wake of Libs donor scandal
Sam Pang has jokingly revealed his radio contract is up at the end of the year and that he “saved” the Logies. He’s also taken a swipe at the Libs’ donor scandal
Fiona Byrne
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He is notoriously media shy but TV and radio funny guy Sam Pang has finally revealed a little of the man behind the mystery, including the reason why his footy career with Collingwood failed, his connection to 3AW, how he single-handedly saved the Logies, and then lost a Logie Award while party surfing.
And in a tantalising twist the Nova breakfast host let slip at an event hosted by rival radio station 3AW that he was out of contract at the end of the year.
Pang joined Melbourne’s breakfast radio king Ross Stevenson on stage at the 3AW Rumours Feast at the Regent Plaza Ballroom on Friday and cheekily called out Nine’s head of content – radio, Greg Byrnes.
“Where are you Greg?,” Pang said.
“Greg, obviously you are very important. I’m just letting you know I am out of contract at the end of the year.”
Reminding him of his connection to AW, Stevenson asked: “You will head back to AW eventually, won’t you?”
“I started at Triple R, but my first paying job was as a producer at 3AW,” Pang said.
“I was working on Sports Today with Clinton Grybas and Dwayne Russell and we (he and Stevenson) met in the corridors.
“I will never forget the first words that you ever said to me ‘white with one, thanks chief’,” he joked. The pair are good mates and play easily and generously off each other.
Aside from Nova, where his deal sees him part of the breakfast team for the ‘civilised’ hours of 7am to 9am Monday to Thursday, “I have Fridays off”, Pang is a staple on TV’s The Front Bar and Have You Been Paying Attention.
He also had a promising, but brief, footy career.
“I played 14 games with Collingwood in the under 19s and it was a big thrill, back then you went to the club you were zoned to,” he said.
“I should have probably known I was not long for the game when my nickname was The Orchid, because according to my teammates I needed absolutely perfect conditions to thrive.
“That is not the nickname you want as a footballer, you want The Dominator, you want Bulldozer or whatever it is.”
Pang hit the headlines in June when he accepted a Logie on behalf of his mate Kitty Flanagan at TV’s night of nights and then lost it while surfing the network afterparties.
“I don’t know if anyone saw the Logies? So I saved them,” he said.
“Kitty was not there, she was filming for Fisk and she won this award.
I was sent up (to accept her award).
“I am not going to lie, I had had a couple and that night I lost her Logie.
“I went to a few afterparties afterwards holding the Logie. So we lost the Logie but we got it back to her in the end.”
PANG ROAST OVER LIB DONOR SCANDAL
Matthew Guy’s former chief of staff Mitch Catlin is already a punchline.
Catlin, who was best known for walking celebrities along red carpets in the days before his short-lived foray as a political spin doctor, was the butt of the joke at an up-market corporate lunch in Melbourne on Friday.
Sam Pang seized on Catlin’s ‘donor scandal’ email when on stage at the 3AW Rumours Feast.
“I have a $100,000 donation here to start things off,” Pang teased the crowd, before adding after a perfect pause: “Matthew’s Guy’s chief of staff Mitch Catlin has provided $100,000 to kick off today’s event.”
Big laughs followed: the audience got the joke.
The figure of $100,000 was the amount contained in Catlin’s now infamous email to Guy’s hotmail asking Guy to forward a proposed contract to a donor that would have seen the donor pay more than $8,000 a month to Catlin’s private marketing company, Catchy Media Marketing and Management.
Catlin resigned soon after the email was leaked last week. The proposed contract was not entered into.
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