Oz TV continued - The 50's....

'Good evening and welcome to television'...
(Spoken in crispy UK accent)

Who would have though it ehhh? Little battler oz getting the black & white telly box back in '56...as long as the presenters were either English (and v.posh English at that dear sir) or (shudder) American...it seemed in the early days of the box we didn't want our own brash accents barking to us...Preferring foreign accents (as long as they were white) shouting at us instead...Very much Menzies Oz..er - oust-tray -lia...

Television was going to encaptulate the post war world...especially good family values and clean fun...(well initially...but more of the Kennedy's Crow Call and Abigail's bosom's from 'No.96' later) Telly was the new media...but the world was still used to the old media..newspapers,radio and the newsreel at the 'flicks'...what was Telly to do... ?

Well they just transferred the stars of the old medium to the new medium...vaudleville acts like Bobby Limb and Dawn lake; Bert Newton, Graham Kennedy & Brian Henderson were from the radio...These became the stars of entertainment, variety and comedy shows...

Probably the highlight of '56 was the televising of the Olympic games in Melbourne - a world first ( also the first Games with a closing ceremony!) And weren't we proud- Dawnie & Murray in the pool ( Bless the Glammorheads would do it again in Montreal for the gay games in '06), Shirley on the track and Browne & Marchant on the bikes...

And the sports presenters at the time would say
Go oust-tray -lia... GO!
(said in best English accent with nose held)

Telly would only start around 5pm or 6pm at night...and close around 10'ish - so in Melbourne you could get to Young and Jackson's at knock off - have a few before closing at 6(yes all pubs had restriction of licenses in those days) grab a red rattler or trammy from Flinders Street to home and settle down to watch 'Pick a Box','Name that tune' or 'In Melbourne Tonight' - and in '56 - only one or two stations operated per capital city...so if you didn't like Gra Gra or Bert - you were stuffed...

It wasn't really until the 1960's when Australia started to loosen up a bit, putting aside the lardy cakes and tea things from the church fete & picnics of the 50's, and started to serve champers (domestic) and cheese & cabanosi on jatz's at cocktail do's or sausages, salads & wine coolers at pool parties in the 1960's... OZ wanted variety and change...

...And variety was going to hit OZ TV in a big way...

to be continued...