Cover: The Love Boat

Tasmania’s holocaust
The Australian-made film The Last Tasmanians, which has already aired in Britain and been sold to other countries, is to be shown on Australian TV later in the year. The 90-minute movie tells of the extermination of Tasmanian Aboriginals in the late nineteenth century, and received rave reviews when shown on BBC earlier in the year. While there was no interest from Australian networks in financially backing the “slightly dramatised” documentary when in production (it ended up being partially funded by BBC and French group SFP), ABC and the three commercial networks had since made bids to buy the rights to screen the movie – with the 0-10 Network successful.

Walsh’s Walkabout
With The Mike Walsh Show about to be based in Melbourne for a week, host Mike Walsh has announced plans to take the popular daytime show to other parts of the country. “We get a huge response from all over Australia. After we announced that we were going to Melbourne, GTV9 called us to say they had been inundated with calls from people wanting to be in the studio audience,” he told TV Times.

Bert gets the boot
Nine Network personality Bert Newton (pictured) has been awarded The Footlighter Award (a cigarette lighter shaped like a foot) for personality of the year at the annual Footlighters showbusiness ball in Melbourne. The night was highlighted by an off-beat floorshow featuring The Naked Vicar Show‘s Colin McEwan as an un-angelic Charlie’s Angel, Maurie Fields as a girl guide and Ross D Wylie as a limping nun. After accepting his award, Newton had to race off to the Nine studios to appear on The Don Lane Show.

Peter can lend you an ear
In a dance routine on this week’s The Saturday Show, don’t be fooled into thinking there are nine John MacNally‘s on screen. No special effects, but rather, there will be MacNally (pictured with co-star Suzanne Steele) accompanied by eight dancers all wearing latex masks in his likeness – the work of ABC props artist Peter Dack whose desk is surrounded by relics of former ABC productions; such as fake snakes from Bellbird, a rubber hand used in a Bellbird scene where Lynette Curran had to touch a live electric fence (‘the producer wanted real sparks’), and a lump of latex that was stuck to Graham Kennedy‘s face to show a nasty bruise after his character had been beaten up in a scene in Power Without Glory.

Viewpoint: Letters to the Editor:
“I greatly enjoyed the program Mastermind, but disagree with the method of questioning. The method of asking an entirely different set of general knowledge questions is, I think, most unfair. They are so varied it is impossible to make an even test of the competitors’ knowledge.” B. O’Shea, NSW.

“I cannot understand how Willesee At Seven is such a highly rated program. Mike Willesee (pictured) himself blunders his way through the show, mutters useless comments almost inaudibly, and half the time doesn’t even bother to look to camera.” G. Jackson, New Zealand

“Country Road is excellent. It is good family viewing and full of good talent. So why must it be shoved into a late timeslot? Surely it’s more feasible to put Dave Allen and Soap on later?” P. Martin, QLD

What’s On (August 5-11):
ABC presents limited live coverage, about an hour on each of the first two days only, of events from the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada, with half-hour evening and late-night highlights packages each night during the week.

Dame Enid Lyons, the first female member of the House of Representatives, and later the first female Cabinet Minister, is the guest on the final episode of interview program Woman In Question.

The series may have been axed a year beforehand, but the movie version of the former hit series Number 96 is shown on ATV0 on Tuesday night – and on Friday night, the comedy All At Sea, featuring some of the former cast members of Number 96 and game shows Blankety Blanks and The Celebrity Game.

Sunday night movies are The Strange Vengeance Of Rosalie (HSV7), Save The Tiger (GTV9) and Avanti! (ATV0).

Source: TV Times (Melbourne edition), 5 August 1978. ABC/ACP