The Aunty Jack Show
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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 character, Aunty Jack, was a unique comic creation — an obese, moustachioed, gravel-voiced transvestite, part trucker and part pantomime dame — who habitually solved any problem by knocking people unconscious or threatening to rip their arms off. Visually, she was unmistakeable, dressed in a huge, tent-like blue velvet dress, football socks, workboots, and a golden boxing glove on her right hand. She rode everywhere on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and referred to everyone as "me little lovelies" — when she was not uttering her familiar threat: "I'll rip yer bloody arms orf!", a phrase which immediately passed into the vernacular. The character was devised and played by the multi-talented Grahame Bond and was partly inspired by an overbearing uncle whom he had disliked as a child, his grandfather Ben Doyle, and Dot Strong the ABC's last official tea lady.
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[edit] Background
An architecture graduate of Sydney University, Bond was already an accomplished writer, producer, comedian, singer, songwriter and guitarist by the time he graduated. He cut his teeth writing and performing as a founder member and leading light of the University's legendary Architecture Revues from 1964-69. It was here that he met and became friends with other Sydney students including Geoffrey Atherden, Maurice Murphy and Peter Weir, who became Australia's most internationally acclaimed film director. It was here that Grahame also met his longtime musical, writing and acting partner Rory O'Donoghue, who was also a member of Sydney bands The Pogs and Oakapple Day. Aged only 14 at the time, the young musician met Bond when The Pogs were brought in to provide musical backing for one of the Architecture Revues.
After graduating, Grahame and friends continued working together on a wide range of projects in film, TV, radio and theatre. He collaborated on several short films and stage pieces with Peter Weir, and wrote and played in a number of stage comedies and revues including Balloon Dubloon (1969) with Peter Weir, Drip Dry Dreams at the Adelaide Festival and Richbrooke, Filth at the Phillip St. Revue and Hamlet On Ice at the Nimrod Theatre (1970). His friendship with Weir led to him writing the music for the three-part AFI Award-winning 1970 film Three To Go (in which he also had a small acting role), for which Weir directed one segment. Bond also provided the music and played a leading role in Weir's first film, the 1971 short feature Homesdale.
Grahame's first known TV appearance was Man On A Green Bike which screened on ABC-TV at the end of December 1969. The 50-minute film was co-written by and starred Bond, Peter Weir, with Geoff Malone, James Dellit, and Anna Nygh. The story concerned three men, once friends sharing many adventures, who are now mayors of three cities -- medieval Ackley, the futuristic Cadmium, and Petal Lake, a community reminiscent of the 1930s. Into their midst comes the strange figure of Mr. Maloon, a man travelling on a heavily laden green bike. His presence disturbs and embarrasses the mayors.
[edit] Aunty Jack's youth
Aunty Jack's first media appearance should have been in 1969, in an ABC children's radio series, also called "The Aunty Jack Show". It was intended to replace the long-running children's radio series The Argonauts, which was scheduled for cancellation. The new series never went to air because ABC executives felt that that the Aunty Jack character and some of Grahame's songs were "inappropriate" for young listeners.
The Aunty Jack character made her debut on TV in Aunty Jack's Travelling Show, an episode of ABC-TV's The Comedy Game, broadcast in December 1970. It was originally to be called "Aunty Jack's Travelling Abattoirs" but, needless to say, network executives also found this title inappropriate.
This program marked what was the start of a fruitful partnership between Bond, O'Donoghue and ABC writer, producer and producer/director Maurice Murphy. They became the creative nucleus for a string of programs that redefined TV comedy in Australia.
[edit] Influences
Although frequently compared to Monty Python's Flying Circus, the Aunty Jack character in fact made her appearance well before Python was screened in Australia, although the two teams evidently shared the same love of surreal humour. The Goons have also been mentioned as an inspiration, but in Johnson and Smiedt's history of Australian comedy Boom Boom, Bond himself said that he had listened to The Goons only occasionally. He cited Australian radio star Jack Davey, the Mickey Mouse Club and The Steve Allen Show as early interests, but cited the surreal black humour of Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 as a major comedic influence.
Up-and-coming director Peter Weir was also involved behind the scenes in the early days of the series. He had been part of the university revues they had done together in the 60s, but by his own account he gave up performing just before The Aunty Jack Show. He later recounted that, after seeing Monty Python for the first time, he felt that there was no way he could perform as well as the Python team and so he retreated behind the camera.
Maurice Murphy was a pivotal figure in this fertile era of Australian television comedy, overseeing Aunty Jack and its various spin-off series. Ted Robinson, then a young director, got his break working for Murphy on the second series of Aunty Jack. Robinson later took over Murphy's mantle in the 1980s, producing most of the best comedy series of the period, including The Big Gig and The Gillies Report. Interviewed for Mouthing Off, a history of Australian comedy, Robinson enthusiastically sang Murphy's praises:
- "When I was brought in to work on the second series of The Aunty Jack Show, it was my first contact with television comedy, and I was amazed by the atmosphere of drive and energy that Maurice generated. He made it such an exciting time to be working in comedy because the creative climate under him was so open; nothing was considered too mad or bad or off-the-wall that it wouldn't be considered for broadcast. People like me were able to learn their craft 'on-air' in those days, which meant that we were able to make mistakes or even fail completely with programs and still have a job. Maurice encouraged us to take risks and experiment with comedy and I believe this resulted in some of the best and most innovative comedy ever seen on Australian television."
Aunty Jack's Travelling Show convinced the ABC to commission a short series, to be screened weekly. The Aunty Jack Show premiered on 16 November 1972 and became an immediate cult hit with younger audiences, although it was poorly received by critics. Some viewers found it too confronting, and according to Murphy, the ABC received hundreds of calls after the first episode, complaining about the violence, the "bad language" and especially about the drag aspect of the Aunty Jack character.
[edit] Aunty's adolescence and death
The adverse reaction was reportedly strong enough for the ABC to seriously consider taking the series off the air, but it is generally reported that impassioned pleas from the children of certain ABC executives saved the show from being cancelled. This would not be the team's last such run-in with management, however, and the tensions between the creative and bureaucratic elements in the ABC eventually came to a head with the infamous The Off Show in 1976.
Two series of The Aunty Jack Show were made in 1972 and 1973 respectively. The first series comprised seven episodes, the second of six episodes. Each episode was built around a central theme. The episode titles were:
Series One:
1."Radio"
2. "War"
3. "Kulture"
4. "Horror"
5. "Anonymous",
6. "Family"
7. "Sex"
Series Two:
1. "The Channel Nine Show"
2. "The Iron Maiden Show"
3. "The Golden Glove Show"
4. "The Ear Nose and Throat Show"
5. "The Little Lovelies Show" and
6. "The R-Certificate Show"
Bond killed off the show by having Aunty Jack die of a heart attack, 'mortified' by the other cast members' 'dirty' language and content.
[edit] Aunty's regulars
While Monty Python had few recurring characters — the Gumby family, John Cleese's presenter and Michael Palin's castaway — Aunty Jack alternated one-off sketches with segments featuring many regular and semi-regular characters. All episodes featured segments with Aunty Jack and her sidekicks — blonde bombshell Flange Desire (Sandra McGregor), the tremulous Thin Arthur (O'Donoghue) and the snobbish Narrator Neville (John Derum).
There were also semi-regular appearances by nervous folk-singing duo Errol and Neil (Grahame & Rory), the obnoxious Kid Eager (McDonald), a parodic amalgam of characters like Dennis the Menace and Ginger Meggs, the extrovert rock'n'roll butcher Kev Kavanagh (Grahame), a character that Bond had already performed (as "Mr Kevin") in Peter Weir's Homesdale.
Derum left the show after Series 1, wishing to pursue other interests. He was replaced by a new cast member, Garry McDonald, a talented young actor, comedian and musician, who had recently graduated from NIDA. His main role was as Aunty Jack's new sidekick, the cheeky, gum-chewing, freckle-faced Kid Eager, but in one episode McDonald premiered a new character, devised by one of the staff writers. This character featured only briefly in Aunty Jack, but became much more prominent in the spin-off series Wollongong The Brave and went on to become one of the most popular comedy characters in the history of Australian television - the now-legendary Wollongong media non-personality Norman Gunston. The Gunston character also appeared on the Aunty Jack Sings Wollongong LP and starred in his own hugely successful, Logie-winning Tonight Show parody, The Norman Gunston Show, which premiered in 1975.
There were some legendary sketches over the two series of The Aunty Jack Show, including:
- Tarzan Superape ("An origami rock opera"), which parodied Jesus Christ Superstar
- Dried Elephant Arrangements for Beginners, in which Aunty Jack visits Taronga Zoo to teach viewers the fine art of "elephanto reducioso" with the reluctant assistance of Colin the elephant
- Colonel Passionfruit, a campy military commander who led his squad of gay troops through a dangerous choreographed war with the help of The Pride Of Erin Mine Avoidance Tactic #III
- Country and eastern singers, The Farrelly Brothers, who performed a unique version of Lucky Starr's I've Been Everywhere - but in this the only places they had been were the NSW regional towns of Wollongong and Dapto (Bond's home town)
- Flat 1A 968 George St (a parody of popular 'sex and sin' soap opera Number 96) in which viewers were promised "lots of bottoms and lots of breasts" - at which point two actors are shown, clad in multiple plastic 'joke' bottoms and breasts.
[edit] Aunty's legacy
The popularity of the series led to a one-off TV special, Aunty Jack Rox On, a concert tour, a #1 hit single, "Farewell Aunty Jack" (the theme song of the series) and a best-selling album Aunty Jack Sings Wollongong, released in early 1974. "Farewell Aunty Jack" was released as a single in December 1973, reached Number 1 on the Australian charts a week later, where it stayed for 22 weeks. It was the first single to debut in Australia at Number 1, the first Australian single to debut at Number 1 and also the first Australian single in picture-disc form, reputedly being the first disc of its kind in the world.
By the time Series 2 was underway Bond was already tiring of Aunty Jack so he decided to kill her off in the final episode, "The R-Certificate Show" when, shocked by the gratuitous sex and nudity, Aunty Jack expires from a heart attack. Bond then departed for a much-needed holiday on Norfolk Island where, jointly inspired by the convict ruins and his holiday reading, Errol Flynn's My Wicked Wicked Ways, he came up with the concept for a new series set in the bushranger days, which became Flash Nick From Jindivik.
The Aunty Jack team subsequently worked together on Wollongong The Brave (1974) which included the episode "Norman Gunston: The Golden Weeks", the show that spawned The Norman Gunston Show in late 1975. At 11:57 PM on Friday 28 February 1975, Aunty Jack, Thin Arthur, and Kid Eager, introduced colour television broadcasting on ABC-TV. The teams last major TV collaboration was the abortive comedy series The Off Show (1976) which was cancelled after only a few episodes following a controversial incident in which an ABC executive erased one of the episodes, "Leave It To Jesus" (a parody of the famous American series Leave It to Beaver), on the night before it was due to be broadcast.
Although fans long hoped that the show might be released on home video, this did not take place for more than thirty years after the show's first screening. Although there have been a number of reasons suggested, it is generally accepted that the major stumbling block was a long-running contractual disagreement between Bond and the ABC. Bond and O'Donoghue controlled the rights for the original music in the series, and their refusal to release them effectively kept the series off home video until 2005.
For many years there were persistent rumours -- fuelled by press statements from Bond himself -- that some episodes had been lost or destroyed. This was given added credence by the fact that (like the BBC) the ABC had undertaken an ill-advised "economy drive" in the late 1970s and early 1980s, during which (it has been reported) substantial portions of many shows were erased.
Fortunately, in the case of Aunty Jack, these rumours have proved incorrect, although some of the film stock was in such poor condition that it required special restoration. The long awaited release of the complete Series 1 on DVD took place in December 2005, and the complete Series 2 followed in April 2006.
[edit] Stage show
Aunty Jack returned in early 2006 in a live stage show titled the Aunty Jack Show and Tell starring Grahame Bond and Rory O'Donoghue. As well as Aunty Jack and Thin Arthur, the show featured the singing tramps Neil and Errol, Country and Eastern music exponents the Farrelly Brothers, the Ri Fol Tit Men and bodgie butcher and meat artist Kev Kavanagh.
[edit] External links
- Aunty Jack's official home information about the TV series and stage show
- Aunty Jack tribute page image and sound bites from Aunty Jack Sings Wollongong
- The Aunty Jack/Grahame Bond Ography
