When Melbourne’s ATV0 axed the popular children’s show The Magic Circle Club in 1967, producer Godfrey Philipp, host Nancy Cato and most of the show’s cast made the move to ABC to create another series, Adventure Island.
But not all of The Magic Circle Club crew followed the same path. Tedd Dunn, who played Fredd Bear in The Magic Circle Club, stayed on to work in the wardrobe department at ATV0. But the cumbersome Fredd Bear costume that Dunn designed was not got rid of and Fredd Bear was to make a return to screens in a new series, Zero One.
Utilising the same Magic Forest setting of The Magic Circle Club, Zero One centred around an alien creature, Zop (Sue Donovan).
Zop lands in the Magic Forest when her space ship crash lands, with Captain Steele (Max Bartlett) and his engineer and navigator, Lieutenant Whittaker (Geoffrey Veitch). The crew become acquainted with Fredd Bear and other characters of the Magic Forest, including Mother Hubbard (Fred Tupper, reprising the character from The Magic Circle Club), and introduced to Kristine (Kristine Kaman), whose car has broken down in the forest.
The characters then set off on their own space adventures.
Or, so it was intended.
The pilot, produced at the studios of ATV0 in 1968 at a cost of $4000, was not to proceed. Station management decided that even on a national basis, the show would be too expensive for its timeslot and audience.
But not all was lost. Fredd Bear was to make a successful comeback the following year, co-hosting the new breakfast show Fredd Bear’s Breakfast A Go-Go! with Judy Banks, Colin McEwan and Michael McCarthy. The new show ran for three years.
Tedd Dunn went on to become a successful producer at ATV0, and won a TV Week Logie Award in 1975 for Outstanding Creative Achievement. He stayed at the channel, which later became ATV10, until 1988.
Sue Donovan (later to become Sue McIntosh) went on to succeed Nancy Cato on Adventure Island and appeared on The Mike Walsh Show, Division 4, Matlock Police, This Love Affair, Homicide, The Graham Kennedy Show, And The Big Men Fly, The Paul Hogan Show and The Ted Hamilton Show. She hosted the education show You, Me And Education and became a news presenter at National Nine News and ABC News in Melbourne.
Source: TV Week, 2 November 1968. TV Times, 20 November 1968. Sydney Morning Herald.
I remember Judy Bank’s name but her face isn’t recognisable to me. I think Nancy Cato is still going. I had some interaction with her a few years ago.
If my memory is correct, there was some controversy when Sue McIntosh, mother of Jason Donovan too, was dropped as a ABC newsreader with rumours she looked too old on tv screens. True or not, that seems to be a thing of the past, at least at ABC TV.
Hi Andrew. Tribute to Judy Banks here: https://televisionau.com/2022/01/obituary-judy-banks.html
Nancy Cato still going strong, she’s active on Twitter/X and Bluesky.
Not familiar with the situation re Sue McIntosh but that was an era where if a female reached a certain age she would get replaced with someone younger. Not quite as prevalent these days thank goodness but probably still happens to some extent.