Holiday Island, Shafted, Live and Kicking: Relive the biggest Melbourne-made TV turkeys
Nine’s retooled Footy Show isn’t the first Melbourne ratings disaster. From a sports star turned talk show host to a comedian pretending to urinate on set, here are our biggest TV flops.
Melbourne
Don't miss out on the headlines from Melbourne . Followed categories will be added to My News.
It seems nothing will save Channel 9’s The Footy Show from the chopping block.
The retooled version of what was once a ratings juggernaut for Nine since its inception in 1993 is tanking faster than a jet-propelled Panzer, with truly dismal ratings last week — especially when compared with Seven’s The Front Bar.
While we all remember and celebrate TV’s greatest hits, it’s easy to forget the misses — and Melbourne has produced some utter stinkers along with televisual gold over the years.
Here are a few dire shows to remember.
IT’S HITCH V MITCH IN TV NEWS BATTLE
WHY NEW FOOTY SHOW, TODAY ARE IN TROUBLE
THE MICK MOLLOY SHOW (NINE)
Mick Molloy is riding high with The Front Bar, but it wasn’t always so. The Mick Molloy Show should have worked, but it didn’t — and it crashed spectacularly.
The Mick Molloy Show arrived on Channel 9 in July 1999 and was gone by the end of August after eight episodes.
With Hey Hey It's Saturday about to wind up, this was Nine’s attempt to grab a younger audience and in the afterglow of the nationally syndicated Martin/Molloy radio program, Mick was to be Nine’s man for an edgier Saturday night offering.
It included live and prerecorded sketches, group discussions around the show’s coffee table, and even film reviews.
Regulars on Mick’s couch included Tony Martin, Dave O’Neil, Judith Lucy and Bob Franklin with GTV-9 legend Pete Smith and Crowded House’s Paul Hester leading the house band, Largest Living Things.
Sketch one of episode one featured Molloy playing drunk and pretending to urinate on set, with his back turned to the audience, earning viewer complaints and talkback outrage. You never saw Daryl and Ossie do that, did you?
Reportedly, Nine Network owner Kerry Packer, who yanked Doug Mulray’s Australia’s Naughtiest Home Videos from air immediately back in 1992, wasn’t all that impressed.
Critics hated it and viewers didn’t warm to the anarchic production.
Mick was contracted for 20 episodes. Only eight went to air.
WARNIE (NINE)
Another disaster for Nine was cricketer Shane Warne as a talk-show host in Warnie.
This was a Nine Network chat show hosted by Shane Warne that had big name guests including the master of the genre, Michael Parkinson, Dannii Minogue, James Packer and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.
It aired during the 2010/11 Ashes series, but it was not a hit with viewers. An estimated 850,000 people watched episode one. Fewer than 500,000 came back for a second innings the next week.
Channel 9’s spinners tried hard to save face, saying that with the Test series wrapped up following the match in Melbourne, there was no need for a final instalment.
HOTEL (0-10)
This ill-fated Crawford Productions show was ATV-0’s best hope to replace The Box, which had more or less run its course by 1977.
Think of Hotel as Love Boat set in a luxury Melbourne hotel with a loveable cast of workers as regulars and a cavalcade of guest stars to glam up the joint.
MODERN TV IS TOO SAFE, BERT NEWTON SAYS
Terence Donovan played the hotel manager, with Carmen Duncan and American actor Richard Lawson among the staff who would keep the drama flowing week to week.
Exterior shots were filmed at the Old Melbourne Inn in North Melbourne, then one of Melbourne’s best hotels.
But Channel 0 pulled the plug seven episodes into production and before an episode ever aired.
In fact, before it broadcast the first two episodes on June 13, 1977, it ran full-page ads in the Melbourne press that featured newspaper clippings of the $1 million bath it took on production of the show, described it as “Australia’s most discussed television show” and urging viewers: “You be the judge”.
Two more episodes aired in a two-hour special on December 27, 1977.
Despite the controversy, actor June Salter won a Sammy for her performance in one episode, and scriptwriter Vince Moran won an AWGIE for another.
HOLIDAY ISLAND (10)
Crawfords tried on the Love Boat-style tourism angle again for the Ten Network in 1981 with Holiday Island, but a fatal flaw aided its demise.
If you’re going to make a drama set around the goings-on at a north Queensland holiday resort, don’t film it in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, where overcast skies are common and it’s hard to disguise steaming breath coming out of the mouths of bikini babes trying not to look like blocks of ice in the outdoor pool.
Like Hotel Story, Holiday Island’s regular workers (and a few island locals) were met each week by a new group of guest stars).
MELBOURNE TV ADS FROM THE ‘70S AND ‘80S
Channel 10’s Nunawading studio was used for internal and external shooting.
The cast included Nick Tate (an Aussie actor best known at that stage as Alan Carter in the sci-fi drama Space: 1999), Alyson Best, Richard Grives, veteran Frank Wilson, as colourful local Banjo Paterson, and Tom Oliver.
The show’s big cast and elaborate set (pool and all) made it a costly show to produce, and the ratings didn’t set the world on fire. It staggered on for about 60 episodes.
The resort complex set was recycled as Lassiter’s when production of Neighbours cranked up at Channel 10 in 1986.
SACKING MAL WALDEN (SEVEN)
In 1987, when Fairfax took over ownership of HSV-7, Sydney-based executives started swinging the axe early on Melbourne-based programming — ironically, starting with the show that featured the time-honoured wood chop, World of Sport.
Then, the Sydney suits came for Mal Walden, who had fronted Seven National News for eight years following the departure of Brian Naylor to Nine in late 1978.
CHILD FLIPS THE BIRD TO SUNRISE STAR ON AIR
Walden was well regarded in Melbourne and regional Victoria, where country stations broadcast Seven’s relayed news service.
Ratings were down against Nine and Ten, but Seven remained competitive.
Walden was told he was out shortly before his last bulletin on March 27, 1987.
As he signed off, an emotional Walden turned his face from the camera to the side briefly.
Walden’s sacking struck a chord. Flowers and cards arrived at the station’s studios in Dorcas St, South Melbourne, and the phones ran hot with complaints.
Greg Pearce, a Perth native, replaced Walden but he was on a hiding to nothing. Viewers turned off in droves.
Across the board, HSV’s ratings plunged, with only a few thousand viewers switching on at times. In some slots, ratings were recorded only with an asterisk — too few viewers to be counted accurately. Country stations switched to Nine’s news.
RIVAL NETWORKS RELISH LIFE WITHOUT MAFS
Changes to media ownership laws, preventing Fairfax from holding newspaper and television interests in one capital city, forced the company to sell.
New owner Christopher Skase ushered in a new era of local programming in Melbourne and helped to right the ship.
THE BOUNCE (SEVEN)
Peter Helliar hosted this trainwreck for five episodes in 2010. It launched in March and was gone by April despite expert footy commentators Matthew Richardson and Leigh Matthews and a cast with Peter Rowsthorn, Catherine Ellis and Dave Lawson.
It blended panel discussions and prerecorded skits and was an attempt to capitalise on the success of Ten’s Before the Game panel format and to nobble Nine’s all-conquering Footy Show by getting in an hour earlier on Thursday nights with the league teams.
It opened with 326,000 viewers in Melbourne, and finished after four more episodes with an anaemic 165,000.
“We set out to do something fresh and something different in terms of a family friendly football show,’’ Helliar told the Herald Sun.
“We knew going in it was a tall order but wanted to give it our best shot. We can’t defend the ratings, they are perfectly clear.’’
At the time, the show was to be reviewed and would return for the finals series. Instead, it sank without trace.
SECRETS (ABC)
It’s rare for the ABC to remove a program mid-season, but Secrets was an exception.
The 1993 series starred Rachel Griffiths in her first major role as one of four university students in training for a life in the spy game with an organisation known as The Firm (Foreign Intervention and Revolutionary Management).
HAS MUSIC FAIULED THE REALITY TV TEST?
It came from the makers of Melbourne-based elite police dramas Phoenix and Janus — a great pedigree.
The program was pulled after four episodes in its original run and replaced with repeat episodes of the ever-popular Police Rescue, which rated better.
Secrets must have looked great on Griffiths’ resume. She went on to star in Muriel’s Wedding and Cosi before a film and TV career in the United States that included cult favourite Six Feet Under and Brothers and Sisters.
BEN ELTON LIVE FROM PLANET EARTH (NINE)
This 2011 effort was yet another hope to revive the glory days of variety television for Channel 9.
Elton wrote and presented the show, which included his own stand-up comedy and comedy from a cast of players including Paul McCarthy and Genevieve Morris (Comedy Inc.), Michelle Lim Davidson (Utopia), Veronica Milsom (Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell) and Kate McLennan (The Katering Show, Get Krack!n)
Despite Elton’s Young Ones and Blackadder cred, it was panned by critics, belted on social media and was unloved in the ratings. It was canned by Nine after three episodes.
LET LOOSE LIVE (SEVEN)
US comedy juggernaut Saturday Night Live has been an American institution since 1975 and is going as strongly as ever today.
Seven’s answer to Saturday Night Live, Let Loose Live, lasted a mere two episodes.
The cast was a cracker, featuring Fast Forward alumni Marg Downey, Peter Moon and Michael Veitch, Colin Lane, Dave O’Neil, Jane Hall, Kate McLennan, Paul Calleja and Stephen Curry.
It first went to air at 8.30pm on Sunday, May 29 2005 with actor William McInnes as guest host.
In all, 980,000 people in the five capitals tuned into night one — dreadful given the expense of the program in what was still considered prime time viewing.
It prompted a savage internet backlash, with many lamenting the state of Australian TV comedy.
VIEWERS PRAISE GET KRACK!N’S BREAKFAST TV TAKEDOWN
The next week, with Seven presenter Tom Williams guest hosting, only 650,000 viewers came back.
Guy Sebastian was to host week three. Seven gave Let Loose Live its death sentence on the Tuesday after the second show.
SHAFTED
This was intended as a crucial lead-in to Nine’s news but Symons’ acerbic persona and the hard-to-follow format did not click with viewers.
The show debuted on February 11, 2002 and was quietly killed off by the network the following month.
Six contestants would make a secret bid up to $500. The highest bidder was immediately eliminated. The five were then required to make a new bid.
The second-highest bidder from the first round would then determine which of four categories would form a 10-question quiz round.
If a contestant answered a question correctly, their wager was added to their total. If wrong, their wager was taken away and they were prevented from taking further part in the round.
The final question in the round went to the remaining player who had the highest bid earlier.
The leading player could then shaft an opponent, with that opponent getting the chance to plead their case to remain in the game and the leader could keep them and shaft another (without the right to plead) or stick with their first choice.
This would continue for two more rounds, with the scores from eliminated players going to the leader until two players remained.
These two would have to decide whether or not to share the accumulated prize money or shaft their opponent. If both players chose to shaft, they were both shafted and got no prize at all.
Got all that? No? You weren’t alone.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
LIVE AND KICKING (SEVEN):
Jason Dunstall and Doug Hawkins became household names thanks to The Footy Show, but they fell well short of the mark in 1998 when they tried to recreate the magic at Channel 7 with Live and Kicking.
The program had plenty of footy banter, thanks to co-host Craig Hutchison, but aired on a Wednesday night, well before the teams for the next round were announced, so Live and Kicking was more of a variety show with elements of a footy pie night as AFL stars took to the stage to perform songs — with varying levels of success.
Live and Kicking is notable for Jason Dunstall’s announcement of his retirement on air.
It shuffled through the 1998 and into 1999 with low ratings. It was replaced by Dermott Brereton’s The Game in 2000 — also a ratings flop.
THE NATION (NINE): Mick Molloy’s second stab at ratings nirvana with Nine, a midweek panel discussion and sketch show based on current events, staggered along for 11 episodes in 2007.
The cast included radio host Jackie O, comedians Akmal Saleh and Garry Eck and Paul Calleja, presenter Nicki Osborne, footy commentator Tiffany Cherry and Nine stalwart Pete Smith.
Some complained of “bad taste” jokes. The initial audience of 770,000 almost halved over the show’s run.
THE TED HAMILTON SHOW (10): Best known for his work as Senior Constable Kevin Dwyer in Division 4, Ted Hamilton had plenty of experience as a singer and entertainer before that, including as a fill-in host on the immortal IMT. He left Australia for the US in the mid-’70s and returned to occasionally host the show. Hamilton and his family were coaxed home to ATV-10 for the new Tuesday night variety show, with Sue McIntosh as co-host. It launched on September 23, 1980 and did not see out the year.
CANAL ROAD (NINE): Nine’s drama, set in an inner Melbourne medical and legal advisory centre and focused on the lives of the young professionals therein, won its timeslot when it debuted in April 2008, with almost 1.1 million viewers.
Three weeks later, it had only 388,000. It finished its 13-week run buried on Saturday nights. Patrick Brammall, Grant Bowler, Brooke Satchwell and Sybilla Budd were among the cast, but at a reported $10 million per episode, Nine couldn’t make a cracker out of Canal Road.
NEIGHBOURS, SEASON ONE (SEVEN)
It’s now television folklore that Channel 7 took the goose that laid the golden egg, Neighbours, and handed it to Channel 10. The show was the brainchild of TV legend Reg Watson, who had already created The Young Doctors, Prisoner and Sons and Daughters.
Nine refused it. Seven picked it up but it underperformed in the ratings, especially in Sydney.
Sydney-based network executives declared they couldn’t afford Neighbours, and Sydney-based Sons and Daughters and A Country Practice all at once, so dumped Neighbours.
The little suburban drama that could debuted on Ten in 1986 with some casting changes including the replacement of Darius Perkins as Scott Robinson with Jason Donovan. It’s still going.
Was bizarre shooting suicide pact or murder?
Two men walked into a Melbourne photography studio one afternoon in 1872 to pose with their pistols in a bizarre series of pictures. Hours later a gunshot rang out in nearby Treasury Gardens and their true intentions became clear.
Why Curtis Stone wants to come home
Curtis Stone is the Keilor East boy turned celebrity chef who now lives in a multimillion-dollar house in one of Los Angeles’ coolest suburbs. So how does he show his young kids how to be everyday Aussies?