1994: October 15-21

Jo Beth’s Cinderella story
Australia’s Funniest Home Video Show host Jo Beth Taylor and Getaway‘s Lochie Daddo (pictured) will be starring in Australia’s first all-star Christmas pantomime. Taylor will be playing Cinderella and Daddo her Prince Charming — but it’s not the first time the two have been paired up professionally. In the video clip for her debut single 99 Reasons, Daddo was Taylor’s leading man which led to a kiss. “Yes, it was Lochie,” she said. “And now he’s my Prince Charming again!” Also starring in Cinderella are Bert Newton, Bruce Spence, Paul Blackwell, Nancye Hayes, Wayne Scott Kermond and Miguel Ayesa.

Engagements to ring up big ratings
The upcoming engagement of Neighbours‘ Annalise Hartman and Mark Gottlieb (Kimberley Davies and Bruce Samazan, pictured) could either see them as a happy couple in Ramsay Street, but with Davies’ contract with the show soon to expire and Samazan’s early next year, it is possible that we may not be seeing them happily ever after. “Marriage is usually the nail in the coffin for soapie characters,” Samazan told TV Week. “And engagement is the first step. But a lot of stuff happens in between, and even we don’t know yet if Mark and Annalise will get married.” Viewers will see Mark propose to Annalise while the pair are swimming by a waterfall on a romantic getaway in the Northern Territory. Meanwhile, Home And Away‘s long-engaged couple Shane (Dieter Brummer) and Angel (Melissa George) are set to go down the aisle on screen in April. The wedding ceremony is to be filmed on a closed set in January, with some former characters making return appearances.

Down memory Lane
Don Lane (pictured) is making a return to the Nine Network to relive some of the best moments from The Don Lane Show. In the two-hour special, Lane will be joined by members of the D Generation, comedian Brian Doyle and the Geoff Harvey orchestra in remembering the variety show that ran for 668 episodes between 1975 and 1983. Lane recalls the early days of the show: “The truth is, I never wanted to host the show. After seven years in Australia, I had returned to the US determined to try and make it there. My agent rang me in LA and wanted me to come back to do a short season in Sydney’s league clubs. ‘By the way’, he said, ‘I’ve also booked you to host two Mondays of In Melbourne Tonight‘. After five years at TCN9 in Sydney, I didn’t want to know about doing any more TV, but he already committed me to it. What started as two Monday nights stretched out to lots of Monday nights. Peter (Faiman) kept calling me up telling me the ratings, which were figures like 42 and 38 — unbelievable stuff. I knew there was a lot of crap going on with Ernie Sigley, who was doing Tuesday and Thursday nights, and my instinct told me he would blow it… and he did. The day Ernie went, Kerry Packer rang me in Sydney and told me to get on a plane to take over. People don’t believe this, but Kerry carried my bags through the airport. And that’s how it all started. The next eight-and-a-half years were among the most enjoyable of my life.”

Briefly…

• Network Ten is expected to make an announcement soon about a new drama for the 7.00pm timeslot. Four proposals have been submitted to Ten for consideration, including a medical drama from John Edwards and Sandra Levy, the producers of Police Rescue and Bony. The other three concepts are from Grundy Television (producers of Neighbours), Roadshow, Coote and Carroll (GP) and Crawfords Australia.
• Casting for the guest role of a French exchange student has caught out the producers of Home And Away. An actor with a current driver’s licence was found and they’d started filming — until producers realised 10 days later that exchange students are not allowed to drive in Australia. The guest actor was dropped from the show and the scriptwriters had to start again.
• Reg Prasad, the sidekick on Doug Mulray’s Seven Network series Mulray, says that despite some of the unflattering gags and stunts played on him by the host, he has a great deal of admiration for Mulray. “Doug is a very generous man,” Prasad told TV Week. “Everything I have learned about radio and television I have learned from him. He’s been a fantastic mentor for me.” For Mulray, Prasad has been jumping out of planes, being beaten by a buxom dominatrix and been chased around the studio, naked, by an over-zealous Colleen McCullough — but none of it has phased him. “It can be very scary. Doug says he never will put me in danger, but being chased by Colleen McCullough is pretty frightening!”

Lawrie Masterson: The View From Here

“Very early on in his foray back into prime-time television, Don Lane explains in eight words why his show was so successful for so long: ‘We were never afraid to take a chance’. Of course, there were other elements that contributed to a run of more than 660 talk-variety shows over the eight years that Don Lane loved our faces. But taking chances was a hallmark, especially so when you consider that, almost without exception, The Don Lane Show was genuine live-to-air television. The decision to revisit The Don Lane Show — on the Nine Network (this week) — apparently was made when some initial research started at Melbourne’s GTV9 on a special to celebrate the 40th anniversary of television in Australia, coming up in 1996. The Nine Network, which as turned into an art form the recycling of old programs (the Ray Martin interview shows and the Red Faces specials have been winners), obviously saw another chance that was not to be passed up, and it was promptly grasped.”

TV’s Top 20 (Week Commencing 25 September): 

Program Highlights (Melbourne, October 15-21)
Saturday: In A Country Practice (5.30pm, Ten), Jess (Jane Hall) and Harry (Andrew Blackman) try to keep their relationship a secret from Matron Sloan (Joan Sydney). Hey Hey It’s Saturday (6.30pm, Nine) presents a celebration of its 23rd birthday — including a look back at some of the show’s most memorable moments.

Sunday: Sunday sport includes the Mercantile Mutual Cup (11am, Nine), the Uncle Toby’s Super Series Ironman (2.30pm, Ten) and the Telecom Rally (3.30pm, Ten). Sunday night movies are National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1 (Seven), The Fire Next Time (Nine) and Only The Lonely (repeat, Ten). A special overseas AFL match, Carlton versus Richmond, is telecast live from London (10.20pm, Seven).

Monday: Talk show Live It Up (3.30pm, Ten) presents the topic ‘Living In The Seventies’. In Home And Away (7pm, Seven), Shannon’s (Isla Fisher) warning for Selina (Tempany Deckert) to stay away from Curtis (Shane Ammann) falls on deaf ears. In Healthy Wealthy And Wise (7.30pm, Ten), Ronnie Burns looks at cubby houses, Iain Hewitson serves up a yabbie salad, Jim Brown and Peter Wherrett continue their 4WD road trip to Mackay, and Tonia Todman shows how colour and texture on walls can transform a room.

Tuesday: In Blue Heelers (7.30pm, Seven), when a carpet shop is ram-raided and a body goes missing from a funeral parlour, Tom (John Wood) believes it is B&S ball revellers. Homicide… 30 Years On (8.30pm, Seven) presents a look back at the classic Australian drama that ran for 12 years — hosted by Blue Heelers stars John Wood and Lisa McCune and featuring guest appearances by Alwyn Kurts, Ian Turpie, Sigrid Thornton, Maurie Fields, Val Jellay, Denise Drysdale and Terry McDermott.

Wednesday: In Heartbreak High (7.30pm, Ten), Steve (Corey Page) is devastated when he discovers a veto on contacting his birth mother. The Very Best Of The Don Lane Show (8.30pm, Nine) features Don Lane introducing some of the memorable segments to have come from the popular variety show that ran from 1975 to 1983, including footage of guest stars Mel Brooks, Billy Connolly, Charlton Heston, Bob Hope, Liza Minnelli, Robin Williams, Sammy Davis Jnr, Peter Allen, Peter Sellers and Johnny O’Keefe.

Thursday: In Home And Away (7pm, Seven), Pippa (Debra Lawrance) and Michael (Dennis Coard) continue to drift further apart. Beyond 2000 (7.30pm, Ten) looks at a cheap and easy home testing kit for osteoporosis, and an invisible hearing aid described as a contact lens for the ear. In Janus (8.30pm, ABC), Steve Hennessey (Leon Teague) is still on the run and the police manhunt is proving fruitless. Documentary They Said Don’t Worry: The Deborah Maybury Story (8.30pm, Nine), hosted by Perth news presenter Tina Altieri, tells of a young woman’s brave fight to beat the disease that eventually claimed her life. The special Three Drags And A Wedding (9.30pm, Nine) features the making of hit Australian films Priscilla Queen Of The Desert and Muriel’s Wedding.

Friday: In Neighbours (6.30pm, Ten), Sam (Richard Grieve) does not take the news of Mark (Bruce Samazan) and Annalise’s (Kimberley Davies) engagement very well.

Source: TV Week (Melbourne edition), incorporating TV Times and TV Guide. 15 October 1994. Southdown Press