Marking 30 years of two iconic Australian ABC shows.
Also: Inside the Aussie Stranger Things launch event
There are three Australian TV shows that shaped a generation(-ish) of younger TV viewers. The early 90s delivered sketch comedy show The Late Show, but later in the decade there was Good News Week (a local take on UK game show Have I Got News For You) and Saturday morning teen culture show Recovery.
What I hadn’t realised about Good News Week and Recovery is that both shows debuted within 24 hours of each other. Good News Week launched on a Friday night, April 19, 1996, while Recovery burst onto the screens the next morning on April 20, 1996. That means this week marks the 30th anniversary for both shows.
Looking back at Good News Week, it seems odd that it caught on with younger audiences in the way that it did. A lot of it feels like a fairly typical comedy game show, the likes of which we have seen a lot from in the UK, but back in 1996 we didn’t really get those sorts of shows on TV here. There was a novelty to the format. Having the popular former DAAS member Paul McDermott and Mikey Robbins from JJJ’s breakfast radio show on certainly created that bridge to younger viewers. But watching the show now, it feels very same-y.
Recovery was very different. Looking back at it now, it was clear why it became a much beloved and influential show – even if it was relatively short-lived with a final episode airing just four years later. An edgy, very loose-feeling music and youth-culture orientated show, Recovery felt like a space carved out for Australian teens and twentysomethings.
You can watch a full-episode of the show at the Internet Archive.
There’s an obvious link from Recovery to the very unhip evening family show Hey Hey It’s Saturday, but Recovery felt like a space carved out for Australian teens and twentysomethings. Music-focused, the show was responsible for building an audience highly engaged with local Australian bands. Iconic 90s bands like Regurgitator, Custard, Silverchair, and Spiderbait (among many others) had their fandoms amplified through regular exposure on Recovery.
(Why is it that I feel like mentioning Hey Hey to an ABW audience with 60% of them in the US and UK is like airing Australia’s dirty laundry?)
Recovery is the closest thing Australia ever had to the cultural impact of MTV.
Most of the time when people think back warmly of Recovery, it’s interviews like this that come to mind... Here’s US so-cal punk band Green Day in a 1998 appearance which saw the band performing a song that was very unfriendly to Saturday morning television.
Often the interviews were just a bit awkward, like this one with Custard frontman Dave McCormack (who is globally known these days as the voice of Bandit in Bluey):
Thinking about Recovery quite a bit this week has led me to a big question that I can’t shake from my mind…
Back in 1999, the then-former host of Recovery Dylan Lewis came back to the ABC to host The 10:30 Slot, a short-lived music show that was similar to Recovery in nature (Recovery at this stage was still ambling along on Saturday mornings), but aired on a Friday night.
I appreciate that budgets are tight, but as the current ABC management are seeking out buzzy shows that speak to a broader audience, I’m wondering if there’s a way to bring a studio-based live music Friday night show like The 10:30 Slot back to television (and, lets just call it Recovery). I appreciate all of the obvious reasons why commissioning a Friday night music show doesn’t make sense in the current TV market, but there’s also part of me that asks: Isn’t this sort of thing what the ABC is there to offer?
Stranger Things event
There’s an embargo on reviews for the new Netflix animated show Stranger Things: Tales From 85, so I can’t really say much about the show itself (maybe I can quietly say that I liked it a lot…). But on Tuesday night in Sydney Netflix held a very small, intimate screening of the first episode for media and industry.
Now, when I say intimate, there were maybe about 30 people invited. But the vibe after the screening was very enthusiastic.
The event was held at Flying Bark Productions, the Sydney animation studio responsible for the show. This company is one of those great, under-the-radar success stories. It has produced animated shows like Marvel’s What If…? for Disney, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Legend of Aang: The Last Airbender for Paramount, and for Netflix it has upcoming shows based on Minecraft, Clash of Clans, and Ghostbusters.
I had a brief chat with Flying Bark’s CEO Barbara Stephen after the screening who had some great insights into working with Netflix on what is arguably its most valuable owned IP and it was surprising to me just how much the creative on the show was formed from the production itself and not in a pre-conceived brief from Netflix. Stephen also talked about the secrecy around the production, which was so high that she had an awkward conversation with her son who unprompted asked her recently if she knew about the upcoming Stranger Things cartoon.
I’m going to try and follow up with her again sometime for ABW readers – this is a company (with staff numbering around 700, with 500 locally in Australia) delivering IP tie-ins for global streaming services at a really high quality.
The embargo for the show breaks Thursday afternoon, so I will publish this week’s Always Be Streaming newsletter a day early to offer some thoughts on the show.
News Desk
Just when you think you’re out on a show, they find a way to pull you back in. Julianna Margulies is joining the third and final season of Hulu series Paradise. Read: THR
If, like me, you felt like the season 2 launch of Beef felt very muted compared to just how buzzy that first season was on Netflix, that vibe tracks with the numbers which show a 60% drop in viewership from that first season. Read: Variety
Country singer Morgan Wade has joined the cast of Paramount+’s Yellowstone sequel show Dutton Ranch. Read: Deadline
ITV has confirmed a seventh season return for John Simm series Grace. Read: Radio Times
Prime Video has picked up the rights to the six-episode action adventure show Embassy for the UK, Ireland, Canada, France, Australia, and New Zealand. It’ll star Anna Kendrick, Sam Heughan, and J.K. Simmons. Read: Deadline
Exec Oliver Jones is leaving Apple TV for a new role as Amazon's senior scripted commissioner for the UK. His credits at Apple included Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Masters of the Air, Tehran, and Disclaimer. Read: THR
Joe Buck will host ESPN Jeopardy!, which will stream on Disney+ and Hulu (but not ESPN…?). Read: Deadline
Trailer Park
Silo is back for season three on Apple TV from July 3.
Who remembers ambitious, but underwhelming big budget 2023 Prime Video sci-fi show Citadel? Brush past those tumbleweeds and watch season 2 on May 6.
Devil May Cry returns to Netflix for season 2 on May 12.
That’s the newsletter for the today.
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