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You can enjoy the naffness from the 5 minute mark here.
That was Reg Watson. Who eventually returned to Australia to work with Reg Grundy. So it's easy to see how the two get mixed up so often.
A Chronological History of Australian Soap
- Thread starter Carrie Fairchild
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Oh my. I enjoyed that far more than I ought to have.
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An easy mistake to make.
Also, thanks! I'm not sure if it's everyone's cup of tea but I love to read about the behind the scenes goings on.
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The Unisexers - 1975
ABC had Bellbird and Certain Women, Ten had Number 96 and The Box (which Nine had turned down) and Seven had Class of '74/'75. But by 1975, while they had a strong daytime schedule of US soaps, Nine still hadn't got a homegrown soap of their own, either in daytime or primetime. To get in on the action, they commissioned a number of pilots including Secret Doors starring Rebecca Gilling, which was described as Bellbird with nudity. Grundys submitted two pilots, one Brady Bunch-esque premise called The Martins and the McCoys and another curious entry called Two Way Mirror. Set in the fashion industry and starring soap stalwarts including Anne Charleston, Cornelia Frances and Jill Forster, the eponymous mirror was one that characters could voyeuristically spy through as people were undressing, having sex and so on. How they were going to stretch this out to five nights a week and take on Number 96 was anyone's guess but Nine didn't have to worry about that because in the end, they opted for a series from Cash Harmon Productions of Number 96 infamy. Although given the tiresome premise of the show they chose, they might have been better off taking a chance on the mirror.
The Unisexers would follow the lives of a group of young hippies (including future Prisoner inmate Tina Bursill) who set up a commune in a Paddington mansion, complete with older live in landlords Angus and Dora. To make ends meet, the commune ran a business making unisex jeans (hence the title). With the Number 96 connection, the word "sex" in the title and the prospective drug intake and bed hopping associated with the communal hippie lifestyle, the show was on the Broadcasting Control Board's radar and they insisted that the pilot air at a later time than it's proposed 6.30pm timeslot, due to a scene where a woman appears in her bra and underwear. Producer Bill Harmon stated that the BCB's interference meant "everything we could have fun with was taboo, we were left with nothing to play with". Where TV had "lost it's virginity" with Number 96, one reporter quipped that the show was so innocent that "TV Regains It's Virginity" with The Unisexers. The family friendly 6pm timeslot didn't lend itself to a sex and sin soap either and the show had to rely on badly written comedy elements and generation gap japes to get by. With ratings collapsing, after three weeks and only 15 episodes, everyone involved agreed to pull the show off the air. After it's demise, one Nine executive optimistically described it as "a $1 million experiment". For those that are interested, some the aforementioned Two Way Mirror can be found on YouTube and it's a bizarre treat featuring a now well known theme tune. I'd post it here only it's age restricted but you'll find it if you log in. What unsurprisingly wasn't age restricted is the only clip of The Unisexers that I've found.
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Amazing!
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It's like Hair meets Man About The House meets Gems.
Jessica Noad always seems to play pretty much the same character, whether she's Edna Ramsay on Neighbours, Pippa's kleptomaniac mum on Home and Away or loveable landlady Dora. Which isn't a criticism. She's very watchable indeed.
Damn. I can't find it. And after trying several different phrases involving the key words "two way mirror", my YouTube suggestions are probably going to get very weird.
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They seem to have a new age verification process on the YouTube app, so I can't get into it but I think I might have copied the link (see below). If not, search for "Two Way Mirror Cornelia Frances" and you'll get it.
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That worked - thanks!!
I was most curious about the theme. It took me a few minutes to place it due to the arrangement, but yes. I love the irony that it became iconic on a wholesome Aussie soap so soon after being the soundtrack to hazy Seventies full frontals here.
But what's this?! Cornelia Frances in a turban having an arch conversation with a woman in an eyepatch?! I'm going to wake up tomorrow under the belief I dreamt the whole thing.
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The Young Doctors - 1976 to 1983
After crashing hard with their first soap venture, Nine decided to double their chances of success by trying out two new serials at the same time in late 1976. The Young Doctors from Grundys (created by Alan Coleman and produced by Reg Watson) premiered a week before The Sullivans from Crawfords, and while it would go on to have a slightly longer run than the wartime drama and be quite successful internationally, The Young Doctors would always be the poor relation next to it's critically acclaimed Channel Nine stablemate. Set in Albert Memorial Hospital in the Sydney suburbs, the show followed the lives and loves of a group of young interns who have just started working there. While the show holds the honour of being Australia's first TV medical drama, there wasn't much emphasis on the medical aspect and more on the emotional and physical as the drama zoned in on the various romances and love affairs among the hospital staff. Premiering to dire reviews all round ("Medical Misfits Are A Terminal Bore" snored the Daily Telegraph), Nine decided not to renew the series beyond it's initial 13 week order and instead focus on it's prestigious new period drama that was wooing the critics. However, in dramatic soap fashion, the cast were informed at the wrap party that Nine had reversed it's decision (after a ratings survey and uproar from fans) so the doctors and nurses would live to love another day (or another six years) on the wards of Albert Memorial.
The decision paid off for Nine as The Young Doctors began to rate well in it's five days a week, early evening timeslot (usually 6pm) across most cities although it floundered in Adelaide where it only aired twice a week. Not that higher ratings translated to higher budgets. The show reputedly only received a third of what Nine was throwing at The Sullivans (understandably a period drama would be more expensive to make) but the minimal budget for TYD led to wobbly, cardboard sets and tales from the cast of freezing/tropical conditions in their rundown studio with a leaky roof. They were also subjected to recording "as live" (Crossroads also favoured this method in the 70's) which led to many booms and wobbly set pieces being left in the final cut. Still, they trooped on through the various affairs, murders, marriages, kidnappings and botched bank robberies, and viewers loved every minute of it, both in Australia and abroad. The show was a daytime hit in the UK, where it aired from the early 80's up until as late as 1995 in some regions. It also aired in France, Canada, Angola, Barbados and Trinidad.
The cast featured many Aussie soap stalwarts including Paula Duncan, Abigail, Peta Toppano and Rebecca Gilling, while Cornelia Frances played one of the show's most memorable characters, the "dragon lady" Sister Scott, whose travails included a fall down an elevator shaft. Two of the cast would go on to success in the US - Peter Lochran emigrated to slightly more exotic soapy shenanigans as Prince Ali on Capitol and Alan Dale has had a long career prior to his current role on nu-Dynasty. The show itself was shoved down the elevator shaft in 1983. After six years on air, it's popularity began to erode as core cast began to depart en masse, creator Alan Coleman left the show and Nine began moving it around the schedule to make way for cricket coverage, leading to it finishing out it's days in a 2.30pm daytime slot in some markets. Despite it's poor reputation among critics and the fact that it never won a single award, The Young Doctors did hold the accolade of being the longest running Australian soap at the time it went off the air (1396 episodes). It is also remembered fondly enough for Nine to consider a remake in the late 00's (titled Young Doctors) but they opted to produce a second series of hit crime drama Underbelly instead.
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I stumbled upon an episode of airport soap SKYWAYS. I guess that's going to be the next entry?
It looks cheap and brown and kinda boring.
It looks cheap and brown and kinda boring.
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It'll be coming up soon. It started in 1979, so I've a handful of others to do before that including a trip to wartime Melbourne and the show that was cancelled before it even aired.
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The Sullivans - 1976 to 1983
In 1976, Crawford were pitching a show about an undercover nun to Channel Nine. Unsurprisingly, Nine weren't exactly enamoured with the idea and told them they were looking for a family drama in the vein of US hit Little House On The Prairie. Crawford dug out a script about a family during wartime that Channel Seven had knocked back the year before (not the last time Seven would regret turning away a soap hit) and The Sullivans was born. The eponymous family lived in Melbourne and consisted of parents Dave and Grace and their four children - John, Tom, Terry and Kitty. The action began in 1939, with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declaring war on Germany and followed the character's various trials and trauma from there.
Despite Nine being keen to get the show on air as soon as possible, it took six months to get it off the ground and it ended up premiering alongside the previously discussed poor relation The Young Doctors. While Grundy made no secret of Doctors' soapy aspirations, Crawford refused to sully it's production with such a term and called it a "meticulously researched period drama". The show was noted for it's attention to detail when it came to period set design and costumes. It also used newsreel footage to propel the story along and even shot some scenes in black and white. While much of the drama was derived from their home lives, they also recreated scenes of conflict in places including Crete, Palestine, Yugoslavia and North Africa. These were all shot in and around Melbourne (a single olive tree was shot around extensively to recreate Crete) with the exception of one trip to the Netherlands to films scenes for a week.
The heady mix of family drama and wartime conflict proved a winner for Nine and the show soon became the number one show in Australia, pulling in a haul of TV awards along the way. Lorraine Bayly, as matriarch Grace Sullivan, became the show's breakout star but by 1979 she was tiring of the slog of fame and the filming schedule and asked to be written out. To keep her onscreen for as long as possible, they filmed scenes before her departure that were slotted in over a six month period after she was gone (EastEnders did something similar a decade later to keep Dirty Den onscreen after Leslie Grantham's departure). Grace would appear periodically in scenes set in London where she had gone to care for presumed dead but newly returned, ex amnesiac son John (Andrew McFarlane had left the series for 18 months to make another series, his departure and return leading to TV movie The John Sullivan Story) Producers hoped that Bayly would change her mind and return but when she didn't, Grace was killed off in the Blitz.
There was much debate among the producers over the years about whether the show should continue after the war had ended. They decided that it would and that the show would time jump to the 1950's and focus on stories about the Korean War and the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric scheme. However, when Paul Cronin announced that he was leaving the show as patriarch Dave Sullivan, producers initially insisted the show would go on but later conceded defeat in the face of his impending departure and falling ratings and called time on the series. Unlike others that came before it, it wasn't thrown around the schedules in it's dying days and maintained it's place in the primetime schedule, bowing out with it's head held high in a feature length finale in early 1983. By the time it ended, well known actors including Belinda Giblin, Vivean Gray, Myra De Groot, Sam Neill, Sigrid Thornton and Kerry Armstrong had all done stints on the show. One regret of the producers was that they killed off too many of the regular cast, making it difficult to revisit the drama in years to come for TV movies and miniseries. In addition to it's super successful run in Australia, The Sullivans was the first Aussie soap success story overseas, airing in 30 countries and paving the way for the likes of Neighbours et al. Beginning a week apart back in 1976, The Sullivans and The Young Doctors both ended a few weeks apart in 1983. Their demise marked the end of Channel Nine's first and last successful soap operas. As we'll see, despite numerous attempts in the years that followed, Nine were never able to recapture their magic.
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This and Homefront are my most wanted never-watched-before soap operas (and the rest of Number 96).
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Loving this thread. I am hoping that Via Vision move on to The Young Doctors for a DVD release once they are through with Sons and Daughters. The Sisters were always my favourite, great strong actresses. I tried to get into The Sullivans, did not make it through the first box set before realising it was boring me! I managed about 20 episodes. I have however got into The Flying Doctors, I had never seen it but watched and loved the mini series so have moved on to season 1 and have season 2 waiting in the wings.
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It's interesting to read the different reactions to The Sullivans. They're usually mostly positive but my only recollection of the show is the theme tune and it hasn't been repeated here for over 20 years, so I haven't had a chance to get stuck into it. In Australia, I believe it's held in pretty high esteem alongside A Country Practice in terms of the classic soaps.
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I do like what I have seen of A Country Practice, have just ordered the new Collection 1 DVD of this from viavision. The Sullivans just did not hold my attention sadly and that intro which never changed for the entire run was pretty boring. I am going to continue collecting Sons and Daughters but wish the sets were a little cheaper. On a side note..I see collection one of E Street was release da few years ago but no sign of them releasing the rest of that series it would seem. If you are in the UK and have Amazon Prime I have found The Flying Doctors mini series is on there, as are shows including Big Sky, Echo Point and Heartbreak High
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Hotel Story - 1977
With Number 96 and The Box on their way out, Channel Ten was on the lookout for a replacement soap. None of Cash Harmon's proposed 96 spinoffs were going anywhere fast, so they turned to Crawford Productions who offered up Hotel Story. It was envisaged as taking over The Box's soon to be vacated timeslot, allowing for continued sex and sin, this time in a luxury hotel. Terence Donovan would play the manager while Carmen Duncan and US actor Richard Lawson (current Mr Tina Knowles, former Mr Dominique Devereaux) were among the regular cast. Guest stars would pop in each week to play out episodic stories that would run alongside the serialised shenanigans of the regular cast. Kind of like a more soapy version of what was to come in The Love Boat and Hotel. A pilot was made in late 1976 but when production on the regular series (due to air twice a week for an initial thirteen weeks) began in May 1977, that was when the proverbial hit the fan. The network decided that the sex angle was out, as were a lot of the guest performers as a result of the change in tone. Actors Equity were making a fuss over the fact that Richard Lawson was getting paid a lot more than the Aussie actors. Even with the changes, the network didn't like what they saw and after only seven episodes were produced and before any made it to air, they pulled the plug with an angry cast initially only finding out about it via the newspapers. The press got further mileage out of it by reporting that gameshow host Graham Kennedy of Ten's hit Blankety Blanks had a hand in it's axing (Ten denied this, although they stated that he was a network consultant). With their axed show getting more column inches by the day, Ten ran full page ads in Melbourne and rushed out what episodes they had in order to capitalise on the coverage of the disaster. While it aired in Melbourne in July, it didn't see the light of day in Sydney until December 1977, when they put out six episodes over two weeks. Unperturbed by the whole car crash, Crawford and Ten later would later revisit the idea when they produced Holiday Island in 1981 (more on this later).
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Some well known faces from the Aussie soap circuit appeared in Hotel Story including Patsy King (Prisoner's Erica ;take a memo' Davidson), Terence Donovan (Neighbours Doug Willis), Maurie Fields (The Flying Doctors' Vic Buckley, ) Peter Adams (Prisoner's Bob Moran), and Moya O'Sullivan (Neigbours' Marlene 'off on a cruise' Kratz)