Edwina Bartholomew: A show like Hey Hey It’s Saturday would never survive today

The upcoming Hey Hey It’s Saturday reunion show got me thinking, what will our kids remember watching when they are all grown up?

Kids, gather round. Let me tell you a story about the olden days of television. Long before streaming and Disney+ and multiple screens, we all used to congregate around the same TV and watch the same show at the same time every single week. I know, I know. I know. It seems unbelievable but it’s true.

Fifty years ago this weekend, Hey Hey It’s Saturday started on Channel 9. This weekend a reunion show will be broadcast on Channel 7, on a Sunday, which feels like an appropriate comedic twist. It will feature many of the famous faces we all grew up with and the stars who appeared on the show from the 70s through to the turn of the millennia.

At the centre of it all was host, Daryl Somers. Alongside characters Ozzie Ostrich, Plucka Duck and Dickie Knee, Daryl guided generations of kids and parents through Saturday mornings and later evenings.

Jacki MacDonald, Daryl, and Ozzie Ostrich.

I sat down with Daryl this week to reminisce about the heyday of Hey Hey. It was like listening to a voice from my childhood. He shared wonderful stories of Hollywood actor Sly Stallone’s reaction when Dickie Knee popped up from under the desk, the best entertainers, his worst guest, and where the set is now (spoiler: he has kept the entire thing in storage in Melbourne).

Daryl freely admits a variety show like Hey Hey would never survive in the current social media environment. Certainly, there are chapters in its history that are extremely forgettable, such as Malaysian-born singer Kamahl’s appearance in a skit where white powder was thrown in his face. That was not funny then and is certainly not funny now.

Overall, the hilarious skits and the Red Faces talent segment provided the backing track to our childhood. It got me thinking, what will our kids remember watching when they are all grown up?

Of course, there are mega-shows like The Voice and The Block but no “appointment TV” that the whole of the country is watching at once. The days of Countdown and Young Talent Time are well behind us but this Sunday night, I’ll be walking down Hey Hey memory lane, explaining to a bored nearly two-year-old what we used to watch on the box in the good ol’ days.

I guess that makes me officially old and officially an embarrassing parent, and I expect that will continue long after Sunday’s show wraps.