Jamie Dunn, best known as the man behind puppet Agro, has died in Brisbane at age 76.
Born in England, he was a songwriter and musician with some chart success in Australia in the 1970s and also worked in the US. In the early 1980s he took on the role of operating and voicing Agro, a puppet character on-air at BTQ7, Brisbane. Agro initially appeared on the locally-aired Super Saturday Show and went on to a national profile on children’s show Wombat and in the ’90s on the long-running Agro’s Cartoon Connection. The morning show won the TV Week Logie for Most Popular Children’s Program for seven years in a row.
Over the years Agro starred alongside presenters including Fiona MacDonald, Jill Ray, Ann-Maree Biggar, Terasa Livingstone, Holly Brisley and Shelley Craft. Under Dunn’s custodianship, Agro became a marketable and heavily merchandised brand, assisted by appearances in commercials and on prime time television including The Main Event, Tonight Live, Celebrity Family Feud, telethons, TV Week Logie Awards, Agro’s 10th Anniversary Special in 1990, and a 2002 revival of the dating show Perfect Match.
Dunn, both with and without Agro, was also part of breakfast radio teams at 2Day FM in Sydney and for over a decade at top-rating B105 in Brisbane. He also had stints at Brisbane stations Triple M and 4BC and at Sunshine Coast station Zinc 96.
Late last year, Dunn announced that following a tour of an “adults-only” live show with Agro, he was in talks with the Seven Network about a television special for Agro for 2026.
YouTube: Studio 10
Source: Mister Brisbane, Brisbane Times, ABC, Mister Brisbane. TV Week, 24 July 1976. The Age, 15 November 1990. Sydney Morning Herald, 8 November 1992. Sunday Times TV Extra, 11 November 1990.
