Molly Meldrum spills some secrets 30 years after Countdown ended
MOLLY Meldrum reveals why Countdown was axed from TV 30 years ago, and why there’s never been another music TV program like it.
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NEXT Wednesday marks 30 years since the ABC pulled the pin on the most iconic music program in Australian television history: Countdown.
After a tentative start in 1974, the show soon became a Sunday night ritual to millions across Australia, immediately changing the face of our pop charts and our pop culture.
Countdown was there for the rise of the pop video — long before YouTube was the only place to see the new clip by your favourite band.
However, by 1987 million-dollar video clips were fast showing up the live performances on Countdown, which had to be filmed on a strict ABC budget.
Host Ian “Molly” Meldrum saw the end coming.
Incoming ABC boss David Hill had Countdown in his sights. Hill felt the program was outdated. Some bands felt it was no longer a “cool” show to be on.
MORE: Rockstars share their secrets about Molly Meldrum
“It was still rating well but the figures had certainly dropped,” Meldrum recalls. “There were a lot of fights with ABC management about money. There were fights from the start, really, that’s where the whole ‘Do yourself a favour’ thing came from — you weren’t allowed to be seen as promoting something on the ABC. But the fights were getting more intense.”
Meldrum thought Countdown could continue with a new host. But it wasn’t to be.
When news of Countdown’s axing went public, Meldrum’s home phone went into meltdown.
The plan was for the final episode of the show to be the 1987 Countdown Awards, held in Sydney on July 19.
And the show would go out the way it came in: John Farnham had been Countdown’s very first guest in 1974, singing One Minute Every Hour. In 1987, he was the final artist to perform on the show, singing the slightly more familiar You’re the Voice.
The awards were preceded by one final show filmed at the program’s spiritual home — ABC’s Ripponlea studios in suburban Melbourne.
That episode aired on July 12, hosted by Kylie Minogue, who premiered the video for her cover of Locomotion, which was still two weeks away from release.
Keeping with the show’s random mix of genres, the second-last episode also featured music from Paul Kelly, Geisha, The Black Sorrows, Janet Jackson and Madonna.
The Village People performed live and Mel & Kim’s Respectable was the No. 1 single of the week.
Meldrum decided to take the train to Sydney for the Countdown Awards.
The iconic scene that opened Channel 7’s Molly miniseries was historically accurate: Meldrum in his underpants chasing the train. He’d jumped off when two of his friends were disembarked for railway-unfriendly behaviour and was left behind.
“It was quite a dramatic trip, even by my standards,” Meldrum admits.
The host had one last party trick for the final show. Before leaving the hotel for the awards, Meldrum shaved his entire head, then hid his hairless dome under his trademark hat.
“We kept a few locks to stick to my hat so it looked like I still had hair,” he says. “I didn’t tell anyone. I did it because Midnight Oil and Peter Garrett had caused so many problems with Countdown — they wanted to use their own sound guys, which you just don’t do at the ABC, they’d go on strike. It was my statement to Peter, really.
“INXS were there and Michael Hutchence found out I’d shaved my head and ran up and gave me a kiss.”
At the awards after-party, Hutchence met Kylie Minogue and uttered that infamous introductory quote which would surface in the INXS miniseries: “I didn’t know whether to ask you to lunch or to have sex.”
The Molly miniseries re-created some of the more iconic Countdown moments: the Prince Charles interview; Meldrum bonding with a young Madonna; Meldrum being so tired and emotional he had to be replaced as host mid-show.
Other priceless bits of Countdown history not dramatised in the miniseries include Meldrum being slapped by Iggy Pop and Renee Geyer among others; Cold Chisel smashing the set during an awards show; and performances that literally gave Skyhooks, John Paul Young, Sherbet, Pseudo Echo, Marcia Hines and countless more local artists instant countrywide awareness.
Overnight, bands were able to tour all of Australia. Countdown was particularly popular in rural areas where, up until the mid-1990s, the only TV choices were often the ABC plus one commercial network.
Madonna, Blondie and John Mellencamp scored their first major hits in Australia via Countdown. ABBA’s second wind, post-Waterloo, which saw them become one of the biggest pop acts in history, can be traced back to Countdown championing Mamma Mia.
Sisters Karen and Linda Freedman went from watching Countdown on TV each week to being in the show’s audience each week — it was generally recorded on Friday night or Saturday afternoon, then aired on a Sunday night.
Still in their early teens, the pair, dubbed “The Countdown Sisters” by Meldrum, attended every recording from 1981 onwards and travelled to Sydney as guests of the show for the final episode.
“We lived around the corner from the studios and somehow we became regulars. Molly would even drive us home afterwards,” says Linda. “There was a real energy in the studio. We saw some of the biggest acts of the ’80s like Duran Duran, Human League, Culture Club, Elton John and INXS — all just a few meters away from you in a tiny TV studio. And they were often just hanging around in the ABC cafeteria so you could go up and ask for an autograph or a photo.”
Many of the Countdown era artists are no longer alive: Michael Hutchence of INXS, James Freud of Models, Doc Neeson of The Angels, Ted Mulry, Greg Ham of Men at Work, Paul Hester of Crowded House, Jim Keays, Marc Hunter of Dragon, Chrissy Amphlett of Divinyls, Darryl Cotton, Jon English, Christie Allen, Steve Prestwich of Cold Chisel, Brad Robinson and Guy McDonough of Australian Crawl, William Shakespeare, Harvey James and Clive Shakespeare of Sherbet, Shirley Strachan of Skyhooks and Bon Scott of AC/DC among them.
There are also at least 200 early episodes of Countdown, dating from 1974 to 1979, that no longer exist.
Cost-cutting at the ABC saw the tapes they were recorded on wiped and re-used.
“It’s a real shame, they lost some great stuff,” Meldrum said. “Although there were some very clever behind the scenes people who smuggled some of them out ...”
Troy Walters has spent over 15 years hunting for some of those lost Countdown episodes.
Like many Australians, each January he watches Rage’s retro month, where the late-night, early-morning music video program excavates old Countdown episodes and replays them.
When he contacted Rage via Facebook to request they play more Countdown episodes from the 1970s, he discovered they no longer existed in the ABC archives.
But, having seen a Young Talent Time special in 2001 which featured footage from 1975 — found on prototype home video recorders — Walters figured there could be similar Countdown footage hidden across Australia.
“Home video recorders did exist in the ’70s, but they were only affordable for wealthy people or people interested in technology. They were a big investment,” Walters explains. “But I figured some people must have taped some Countdown episodes with primitive recorders that came out prior to VHS machines.”
Walters’ quest has unearthed some gold — he posts his finds on a Countdown Clips page on YouTube.
One episode from 1977, hosted by Jon English, was in such good quality it was actually aired on a Rage Goes Retro special a few years ago.
Walters has a network of people with whom he trades old videos and recently purchased an old U-matic video recorder which held some Countdown footage from 1979.
The holy grail he dreams of finding is AC/DC on Countdown’s 1974 Christmas episode, singing Baby Please Don’t Go.
“Angus was in a Zorro outfit,” Walters recalls. “I’ve seen photos of it, but no video. AC/DC were regulars on Countdowns in the mid-’70s and they would dress up in costumes before they found their trademark look.”
Countdown was responsible for one of AC/DC’s most iconic videos — it was the ABC that filmed the rockers playing It’s a Long Way To the Top on the back of a truck as it drove down Melbourne’s Swanston Street.
“That video is a piece of history,” Meldrum says. “And it cost just a few hundred bucks.”
Today, another piece of Countdown history is about to be lost: ABC’s Ripponlea studios will soon become apartments.
“There’s a lot of history in that building that’s going to be lost,” Meldrum says. “It was a very special place.”
Author Jeff Jenkins, who co-wrote both of Meldrum’s biographies, says Countdown holds a special place in the hearts and memories of millions of Australians.
“Countdown really did provide the soundtrack to our lives. I remember Frankie J. Holden of Ol’55 telling me: ‘It was a fantastic family occasion, sitting around and watching Countdown. I’d sit down with Mum and Dad and have cheese on toast. Sure, Dad would say, that’s not bloody music!, but it was wholesome entertainment’.
“Frankie J is spot on.”
Jenkins continues: “Countdown had an amazing crew, but without Molly, it would have been just another music show and probably would have lasted just a year or two. Molly has a knack for making things happen. Countdown was always great TV — colourful and unpredictable.”
Jenkins believes Countdown’s true magic was giving music a face.
“We actually got to know the pop stars. We saw them performing and talking to Molly and hosting the show. Pop stars in the Countdown era had personality. Of course, there’s some great music around nowadays, but most of it is faceless and lifeless. Many chart-toppers could walk down Bourke Street and no one would know who they were. And does anyone know what the No. 1 song is this week?”
Countdown was only on air for 13 years, yet its impact was huge.
The same can’t be said for Countdown Revolution, the reboot which ran for 18 months from 1989.
In 1987, Channel 9 launched an Australian arm of MTV (hosted by Richard Wilkins) which lasted six years. That same year, Channel 10 launched Video Hits, which ran on Saturday and Sunday mornings until it was axed — for budgetary reasons — in 2011.
In April of 1987, the ABC launched Rage — with no host, just back-to-back videos, it was a budget Countdown; a cheap way to keep the network on air 24 hours over weekends.
Rage celebrated its 30th anniversary this year. It’s the longest-running music TV show of its type in the world. And those Countdown repeats each January remain one of its most popular fixtures, with fans in online forums asking the ABC to play them more regularly on ABC2.
Meldrum says there’s barely a week that goes by where he’s not asked about Countdown or that someone relays a Countdown-related memory to him.
“I guess it is part of Australian history,” Meldrum says. “It was an amazing time to be working on TV. It was exhilarating. I’m proud of what Countdown did for music, especially Australian music. I hated seeing myself on TV, still do, but we did get away with some outrageous stuff when I think about it.
“When it ended in 1987 it really was the end of an era. This sounds very self-serving for the team behind Countdown, but no one has ever really been able to fill that gap. The media has changed a lot, but there’s never been another music show like Countdown on Australian TV.”
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