Colin McEwan (1967–1968),
Robert Essex (1969–1972)), Captain Crook (Ernie Bourne), Giggles Goblin (
Peter Homewood
Peter may refer to:
People
* List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a sur ...
) and Squire Squeezum (
Burt Cooper)
Other characters were played by guest artists such as
Vivean Gray
Jean Vivra Gray (20 July 1924 – 29 July 2016), known professionally as Vivean Gray, also credited as ''Vivian Gray'' and ''Viven Gray'', was an English television and film actress. She starred in the films '' Picnic at Hanging Rock'' a ...
(playing Mother Sparkle, who became Mother Tinkle—more famously Mrs Jessup in ''
The Sullivans
''The Sullivans'' is an Australian period drama television series produced by Crawford Productions which ran on the Nine Network from 15 November 1976 until 10 March 1983. The series tells the story of a fictional average middle-cla ...
'' and Mrs Mangle in ''
Neighbours''),
Patsy King
Patsy King (born 16 September 1930) is an Australian retired actress known for work in both theatre and television. She has been a children's television presenter, theatre director, playwright and worked in commercials, and in radio and voice ...
,
Brian Hannan
Brian (sometimes spelled Bryan in English) is a male given name of Irish and Breton origin, as well as a surname of Occitan origin. It is common in the English-speaking world.
It is possible that the name is derived from an Old Celtic word m ...
,
Frank Rich
Frank Hart Rich Jr. (born 1949) is an American essayist and liberal op-ed columnist, who held various positions within ''The New York Times'' from 1980 to 2011. He has also produced television series and documentaries for HBO.
Rich is curren ...
,
Mary Hardy,
Angela O'Toole
Angela may refer to:
Places
* Angela, Montana
* Angela Lake, in Volusia County, Florida
* Lake Angela, in Lyon Township, Oakland County, Michigan
* Lake Angela, the reservoir impounded by the source dam of the South Yuba River
Fiction
* Angel ...
and
Lindsay Edwards
Lindsay may refer to:
People
*Clan Lindsay, a Scottish family clan
*Lindsay (name), an English surname and given name, derived from the Scottish clan name; variants include Lindsey, Lyndsay, Linsay, Linsey, Lyndsey, Lyndsy, Lynsay, Lynsey
Places ...
.
Pre-production
Following the May 1967 announcement of the imminent axing of the highly popular
Independent Television System children's programme ''
The Magic Circle Club
''The Magic Circle Club'' was an award-winning Australian children's television show, produced at ATV Channel 0 (now ATV-10) from 23 January 1965 to 1967.
The program's style came from live pantomime and classic fairy tales. It often featured ...
'', made in Melbourne at the
ATV0 studios in
Nunawading
Nunawading is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, 18 km (11 miles) east of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the City of Whitehorse, Whitehorse Local g ...
, the ABC immediately approached its producers with a proposal to immediately take over production of the show. This was very quickly thwarted when the 0-10 Network's then owner
Reg Ansett
Sir Reginald Myles Ansett KBE (13 February 1909 – 23 December 1981) was an Australian businessman and aviator. He was best known for founding Ansett Transport Industries, which owned one of Australia's two leading domestic airlines between 1 ...
refused to relinquish his network's rights to the show's name and premise, forcing Philipp and Howson to devise a lookalike.
''Adventure Islands creation was credited to both Philipp and Howson, although Liz Harris recalls Howson verbalising the show's entire premise and setting, as well as naming all the characters, during a short promotional aeroplane flight in mid-1967.
Writing
Whereas on ''The Magic Circle Club'' Howson shared scriptwriting duties fairly equally with Peter Homewood and
Max Bartlett, for ''Adventure Island'' Howson wrote most of the scripts, with others contributed by Peter Homewood. Howson also wrote four illustrated storybooks based on the show which were given a single limited print run. They quickly sold out and are now extremely rare.
1967–68
Nancy Cato was ''Adventure Islands first host during 1967–68. Cato had been forced to leave ''The Magic Circle Club'' dramatically in 1966 after an on-set accident, and she joined ''Adventure Island'' after her recovery.
Each show would begin with Cato in an enchanted wood (one of the show's few direct similarities with ''The Magic Circle Club''). In early episodes, Nancy would sit down behind a tree-stump lectern on which was poised a magic book, open the book and begin to read the story. The story would be based on a place called Adventure Island and the residents of its town of Diddley-Dum-Diddley, and viewers would see the story played out by the characters themselves.
In later episodes, Nancy would begin the show by bantering with puppets Gussie Galah, Crispian Cockatoo and Matilda Mouse, then read from the book. At the conclusion of each chapter, Nancy would talk to a cat puppet, which was named Samson in a viewer competition early in the show's run.
1969-72
Sue Donovan took over the hosting role in 1969 after Cato's unexpected departure. The show's basic structure remained, but each episode instead began with a conversation with a talking house (Mister House, later named Serendipity House in a viewer competition) voiced by Jack Manuel and sometimes Ernie Bourne). Sue would then walk into the house where she would ad-lib with Crispian Cockatoo and Gracie Galah on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and with Maxie Mouse (Ernie Bourne) and a vertical waveform called Chi on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A chime would sound to indicate it was time for Sue to read the book.
Each show would close with Sue talking to Samson the cat, but on Fridays she would click her fingers and magically transport herself to Diddley-Dum-Diddley for a sitdown chat and a cup of tea with all the characters.
Premise
The show was highly moralistic with a strong "good over evil" motif in every story.
The scripted part of the show—a story serialised over five days, Monday to Friday—usually involved the inhabitants of Diddley-Dum-Diddley being set upon or tricked in some way by one or more of the "baddies". On many occasions the usually dimwitted Clown (with sawdust for a brain and an appalling memory) would save the day with his uncanny ability to see through disguises, a skill not possessed by the other residents of the town.
Some weeks' episodes would include no baddies at all, but instead centre around a visitor to Diddley-Dum-Diddley, often a relative of one of the characters, or a business-person or entrepreneur of some sort.
Concerned that some children may become upset by the mischief created by the baddies or the dilemmas faced by the Diddley-Dum-Diddleys, it was common at times of high drama for a cast member to remind the young audience that "it always turns out all right on Fridays".
The highly melodramatic, overplayed tone of the show was rooted in very traditional
camp
Camp may refer to:
Outdoor accommodation and recreation
* Campsite or campground, a recreational outdoor sleeping and eating site
* a temporary settlement for nomads
* Camp, a term used in New England, Northern Ontario and New Brunswick to descri ...
and
pantomime
Pantomime (; informally panto) is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment. It was developed in England and is performed throughout the United Kingdom, Ireland and (to a lesser extent) in other English-speaking ...
traditions, and utilised a genre of light entertainment and humour appreciated by children for its simplicity and by adults for its escapism and sly nods.
Music
In true 'panto' style, music was an essential element of ''Adventure Island''. Nearly every moment was accompanied by instrumental improvisation. Each episode contained two original songs relevant to the show's plot. The lyrics for these were typically written by the week's scriptwriter (either Howson or Homewood) and set to music by musical director
Bruce Rowland. After Rowland departed the show in 1971 many of the songs he had written were reused in later episodes. Rowland found great fame and respect during the 1970s and 1980s in the field of movie soundtracks. His replacement was
Alan Teak.
The songs were almost always pre-recorded on Thursdays, then pressed to
acetate and given to the actors to take home and learn so they could be accurately lip-synched during taping. A notable exception to the pre-recording rule was John Michael Howson's outstanding and moving live-to-camera performance of ''A Clown Without A Smile'' in episode 1174 (one of only a handful of episodes that have survived).
Puppets
In each episode's unscripted segments, the hostess would converse with puppet characters. It was at these points in the show that viewer contributions (drawings, riddles, jokes, etc.) would be aired.
The puppets which appeared on ''Adventure Island'' were:
*Gussie Galah, operated by Colin McEwan (1967–68)
*Crispian Cockatoo, operated by Ernie Bourne (1967–72)
*Matilda Mouse, operated by Marion Edward (1967–68)
*Samson (cat), operated by Ernie Bourne (1967–72)
*Gracie Galah, operated by Brian Crossley (1969–72)
*Maxie Mouse, operated by Ernie Bourne (1969–72)
A female version of Samson, operated by Liz Harris, appeared for several weeks in 1971 when Ernie Bourne was forced to take a break for health reasons.
Gussie is probably the most notorious, but least remembered, puppet character on ''Adventure Island''. A brilliant McEwan creation, his intensely squawking voice, disruptive manner and constant teasing of Nancy Cato took the hilarious whining of Leonardo de Fun Bird (from ''The Magic Circle Club'') to a completely new level. When McEwan left the show, Gussie was replaced by a more cultured female galah, Gracie, who was slightly taller in stature.
Samson was a large hand puppet, similar to a
muppet
The Muppets are an American ensemble cast of puppet characters known for an surreal humor, absurdist, burlesque, and self-referential humor, self-referential style of Variety show, variety-sketch comedy. Created by Jim Henson in 1955, they are ...
. All the other puppets were mechanical creations. The operator would pull down on a rod, either underneath or inside the body of the puppet, to open the mouth or beak. The show's puppets were constructed by
Axel Axelrad, who was typically named in the credits simply as "Axel".
Magic
As in ''The Magic Circle Club'' all of the characters in ''Adventure Island'', including the hostesses, possessed magic powers which they could call upon if the need arose. These were used sparingly, most likely because of technical difficulties in performing videotape drop-edits with the cumbersome videotape technology of the day.
Each Friday episode generally concluded with the hostess visiting Adventure Island and sitting with the characters to discuss the week's adventure. She would transport herself there by clicking her fingers.
Samson (the pussycat) was actually a magic cat who would be invisible until Monday afternoon's episode. To make him appear, the hostess would need to answer a question he would ask from "beyond". He would disappear again on Friday afternoons by sneezing.
Colour
No episodes of ''Adventure Island'' were produced in colour, since Australian TV was at that time broadcast in black-and-white, and there was evidently no plan to sell the program overseas. A popular belief by many viewers that the show was in colour could be attributed in large part to the brilliant sets which, for most of the show's run, were designed by
Paul Cleveland.
Howson has said that in 1971 an American network expressed strong interest in the show and were only reluctant to make an offer due to its monochrome format. Howson proposed a solution to the ABC in which the entire five shows would be restaged on Tuesdays but this time filmed in colour—the cast and crew now totally familiar with the scripts, having performed them for the videotaped version on Sunday and Monday—but his proposal was met with total uninterest by the ABC and was never considered.
A brief piece of colour footage (actually an offcut from a 1972 ABC magazine show story on the show's closure) was aired for the first time in 1996 as part of an ABC 40th anniversary programme.
Awards
*''Adventure Island'' won the first TV Week Logie award in the newly established category of Best Children's Show in 1969 (for programmes broadcast in 1968).
*In 1971, Sue Donovan won the Logie for Best Female Personality (
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada
* Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory
* Victoria, Seychelle ...
).
*For his contribution to Australian children's television, Godfrey Philipp won a special Logie award in 1973. (In 1979, Godfrey's programme ''Rainbow'' won a further Logie for Outstanding Contribution To Children's TV.)
Cancellation
The show's axing, announced in mid-1972, was highly controversial—not least because it was replaced by the American program ''
Sesame Street
''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) ...
''—and an unprecedented flood of public protest ensued. A group of MPs headed by David Kennedy launched a "Save Adventure Island" campaign during which questions were asked in Parliament. However the campaign was unsuccessful and the final episode, number 1175, aired on 22 December 1972. Godfrey Philipp had been the mastermind behind the
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also simply known as Labor, is the major centre-left political party in Australia, one of two major parties in Australian politics, along with the centre-right Liberal Party of Australia. The party forms t ...
's successful "
It's Time" campaign, which in 1972 brought about a change in government in Australia for the first time in 22 years, so the decision to cancel ''Adventure Island'' may have been politically rather than economically motivated.
In popular culture
The costume for Percy Panda was used in a semi-regular segment on the ABC comedy ''
The Late Show The Late Show may refer to:
Books
* ''The Late Show'' (book), a 2017 book by Michael Connelly
Film
* ''The Late Show'' (film), a 1977 film
* ''Late Show'', a 1999 German film by director Helmut Dietl
Music
* ''The Late Show'' (Eddie "Loc ...
'' titled ''Shirty, the slightly aggressive bear'', a send-up of children's television, in which the Shirty character would commit various violent atrocities. In the final ''Shirty'' segment, it was revealed that the occupant of the bear suit was
Russell Crowe as his character from ''
Romper Stomper
''Romper Stomper'' is a 1992 Australian drama film written and directed by Geoffrey Wright in his feature film directorial debut. The film stars Russell Crowe, Daniel Pollock, Jacqueline McKenzie, Tony Le-Nguyen and Colin Chin. The film tel ...
''.
In the first episode of ''
The Micallef Program
''The Micallef P(r)ogram(me)'' is an Australian sketch comedy TV series hosted by Shaun Micallef, and written by Micallef and Gary McCaffrie, that ran from 1998 to 2001 on ABC TV. It was known as ''The Micallef Program'' in its first series, ...
'', host
Shaun Micallef introduces the supporting cast as being recycled from old ABC television programs, stating that viewers may recognise cast member Roz Hammond as "the horribly mutilated corpse from the final episode of ''Adventure Island''. I think Clown is revealed as the psychopath in that one."
Archival remnants
Many of the early episodes of ''Adventure Island'' appear to no longer exist. However, a search of the
National Archives of Australia reveals 998 listings of audiovisual archival material for the program, most of which appears to be complete episodes stored as black and white film recordings. Although quite a few were wiped there are at least 955 episodes that do exist. Most of which are later episodes.
The
National Film & Sound Archive
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national c ...
database contains listings for six episodes, preserved on 16mm film and in video copies—one from 1967, one from 1971, and four consecutive episodes (1171–1174) from 1972, which are among the last to have been produced.
The fate of ''Adventure Island'' is consistent with that of many other ABC-TV programs from the same period. In the late 1970s ABC-TV management instituted a policy of "recycling" videotape as a cost-cutting measure and this was especially targeted at older programs made in B&W. All departments of ABC-TV were obliged to surrender tapes and as a result a large amount of historically significant videotaped programming from the 1960s and early 1970s was erased.
However, the closure of the
Gore Hill
Gore Hill is an urban locality on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Gore Hill is located within the southern part of the suburb of Artarmon, and the north-west of the suburb of St Leonards.
History
It takes its na ...
studios in
Sydney in 2002–03 uncovered large amounts of uncatalogued film and video footage, including many hours of live performance footage from ''
GTK
GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and propriet ...
'' and material other programs long thought to have been lost, including 'missing' portions of ''
The Aunty Jack Show
''The Aunty Jack Show'' was a Logie Award-winning Australian television comedy series that ran from 1972 to 1973. Produced by and broadcast on ABC-TV, the series attained an instant cult status that persists to the present day.
The lead chara ...
'' and it is therefore possible that more material from ''Adventure Island'' may have survived.
The
Performing Arts Collection
The Australian Performing Arts Collection at Arts Centre Melbourne, formerly known as Performing Arts Museum (PAM), is the largest specialist performing arts collection in Australia, with over 780,000 items relating to the history of circus, danc ...
at the
Arts Centre Melbourne
Arts Centre Melbourne, originally known as the Victorian Arts Centre and briefly called the Arts Centre, is a performing arts centre consisting of a complex of theatres and concert halls in the Melbourne Arts Precinct, located in the central ...
, holds a substantial number of costumes, props, photographs and related documents for the production, with the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra also holding a substantial collection of production documentation and photographs relating to the show.
The Adventure Island storybook, from which Cato and Donovan read each day, is now part of the collection of
Powerhouse Museum
The Powerhouse Museum is the major branch of the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences (MAAS) in Sydney, the others being the historic Sydney Observatory at Observatory Hill, and the newer Museums Discovery Centre at Castle Hill. Although often de ...
, Sydney. The donor, who was working at the ABC's Rippon Lea studios as a props staffer at the time, rescued the book from a dumpster where it had been discarded in 1988.
Powerhouse Museum Collection search, accessed 5 July 2009
/ref>
In Memoriam
Several cast members of ''Adventure Island'' have died in recent years.
* Colin McEwan – 22 August 2005 (64)
* Marion Edward
* Peter Homewood – 22 December 2008 (79, one day short of his 80th birthday)
* Ernie Bourne – 21 January 2009 (82)
* Brian Crossley – 8 September 2012 (85)
On 22 January 2009, the day after Ernie Bourne's death, the following notice appeared in Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper:
BOURNE, Ernie – A dear, lovable and funny man who brightened the lives of children around Australia and his fellow Cast Members in the Magic Circle Club and Adventure Island. Goodbye Sir Jasper, farewell Fester Fumble and Samson.
- Flower, Clown, Percy, Betty, Lisa, Sue, Miser, Hep Cat, Marlena, Fredd and Feefee, Godfrey, Bruce and the Boys in the Band.
References
External links
Adventureisland.com.au
''Adventure Island'' Collection
in the Performing Arts Collection
The Australian Performing Arts Collection at Arts Centre Melbourne, formerly known as Performing Arts Museum (PAM), is the largest specialist performing arts collection in Australia, with over 780,000 items relating to the history of circus, danc ...
, at Arts Centre Melbourne
Arts Centre Melbourne, originally known as the Victorian Arts Centre and briefly called the Arts Centre, is a performing arts centre consisting of a complex of theatres and concert halls in the Melbourne Arts Precinct, located in the central ...
.
''Adventure Island'' at the National Film and Sound Archive
''Adventure Island'' Opening with Sue Donovan 1970 on Youtube
'Godfry Philipp and ''Adventure Island'': Interview with Liz Harris (Liza) and Beth Spencer' (audio), ''Life Matters'', ABC Radio National, Thursday 23 June 2011.
The Magic Man: vale, Godfrey Philipp, long live ''Adventure Island'', Beth Spencer, ''ABC The Drum,'' 23 Jun 2011.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adventure Island (Tv Series)
Australian children's television series
Australian Broadcasting Corporation original programming
1967 Australian television series debuts
1972 Australian television series endings
Black-and-white Australian television shows
Australian television shows featuring puppetry
Australian preschool education television series