Some classic Australian television is being made available online, just right for the current trend towards binge viewing and to provide fans some alternatives to non-ratings TV fare.
Hey Hey It’s Saturday, the Saturday morning cartoon show of the 1970s that became one of Nine‘s most successful prime time brands of the 1980s and 1990s, is being relaunched with clips from the archive and the more recent 2009 and 2010 shows being made available via its website, HeyHey.tv.
Certain clips of the show, mostly from the 1990s, are available to view free but a subscription fee will apply to view the 2009 and 2010 specials and other classic episodes as they are released online — though it would seem unlikely that there will be much material from the show’s early years as many were lost from the archive.
Meanwhile, ABC‘s iView has announced that it will be making available a range of Australian comedy titles available for online viewing, for 60 days starting this weekend.
The list of titles include recent series The Moodys, Upper Middle Bogan, It’s A Date, Ja’mie Private School Girl, Jonah From Tonga and Laid but will also feature two seasons of the classic current affairs satire Frontline.
Frontline, a creation of the team behind The D Generation and The Late Show, took a satirical, though frighteningly accurate, view of tabloid current affairs television. Although some of the names of that era are different, much of what the series tackled then will still ring true today.
Frontline starred Rob Sitch as current affairs presenter Mike Moore, Jane Kennedy as the ambitious reporter Brooke Vandenberg, and Tiriel Mora as hard-nosed journalist Martin di Stasio.
The series also starred Santo Cilauro, Alyson Whyte, Bruno Lawrence, Pip Mushin, Genevieve Mooy, Trudy Hellier, Lynda Gibson, Steve Bisley and Kevin J Wilson and featured cameo appearances by celebrities including Glenn Ridge, Nicky Buckley, Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell, Amanda Kellar, Don Burke, Anne Fulwood, Rosemary Margan, Pete Smith, Greg Evans, Eddie McGuire and Sam Newman.
