DISQUS

dalekboy · 3 months ago

I watched Hey Hey from when it was originally on in the mornings, and the spontaneity was one of the most appealing things about it. You didn't know what was going to happen because *they* didn't always know what was going to happen. Sometimes big name actors would just hang around after their interviews, become part of the show for that week, because there wasn't another show in the world like it.

Initially it kept some of the spontaneity when it moved to the Saturday night slot. But Red Faces suffered from being a weekly thing, rather than being an irregular event. And as the show went on, it was obviously becoming more structured and controlled. Segments A, B, & C all had to be fitted in. None of this still doing the first segment an hour and a half in because you're all mucking about too much to finish it. The segments were more important than the fun.

I still have the interview where Darryl was talking to Patrick Stewart and says at the end 'well, eight and a half minutes have just flown.' Gone was the show where if it was a great and fun interview they could keep going. Gone was the show where, if Stewart was having a good time he could hang about and watch from the sidelines or get involved.

Patrick Stewart was interviewed by Andrew Denton on his TV show (I think it was on 7) the same week. And he hung around because he was enjoying the interview, and so we ended up with Tom Jones being questioned by both Denton and Stewart. Then Patrick and Tom started joking around, Andrew joined in, and it was a fabulous bit of TV. I don't think I watched another Hey Hey after that, because I suddenly realised just how little I enjoyed it. This was what it used to be like, and it wasn't any more.

I'll watch the specials, and I genuinely wish them all the best, but if they want to go back to the core of what made the show a lasting success to begin with, I honestly think they need to be willing to drop the script and just get on with enjoying themselves. That's what made Hey Hey work, not audiences, not Plucka Duck, just a bunch of mates mucking about, and we were all invited.

murrayNE · 3 months ago

I was probably a "late adopter" on Hey Hey - like John I was in rural WA (at least by my teenage years) and restricted to ABC and the Golden West network, but unlike him (?) I was there long enough to eventually get the show on Saturday nights. Even within the time I watched it, though, I'd have to agree that the show's increasing arrangement into organised segments with organised times took away something.

Oddly enough, even though Molly seems to regard the Hey Hey experience positively, I think that Humdrum at first seemed one of the best things that could happen to the show, but ultimately probably had a lot to do with my disillusionment from it. It just felt like it increasingly became about who could do the best job of blowing Molly's segment (easy there, double entendre fans). The problem was that I looked forward to Humdrum as one of the main things that I wanted to see in the show (potentially before switching channels, which probably means that the rest of the show had already become a bit laboured for me), and watching him being made fun of and battling to get what he wanted done, however he might have been "in on it" (his frustration on air certainly seemed quite real at times) just stopped being worth the wait.

Tristan Boxcutter · 3 months ago

after Wilbur's glowing endorsement of life broadcast will we be seeing the boxcutters step up to the mark and doing a live variety hour?

dalekboy · 3 months ago

Loved the interview with Wilbur. And looking forward to hearing all about Operation Kill next week!

murrayNE · 3 months ago

Hey guys. Congrats on another fantastic show. I was a little concerned in the outro when Brett started talking about getting something in his peehole in the next week, but he seemed pretty happy about the idea, so... ummm... all the best with that mate. :-)

By the way, I have been "Richardsing" too. If you promise to break the shrink wrap and watch some of "The Wire" this week then so will I, John.

Darren Lutchner · 3 months ago

Has anyone noticed billboard or commercials for Visa Credit Card lately. Their big slogan is "go." Now I know its not "GO!" but I reckon channel 9 must be getting some free subconscious advertising out of it.

Sophie · 3 months ago

Wohoo! Over the summer I downloaded all of the old episodes, and I had just finished the last one (153) And voila, a brand new (and hilarious) new show showed up in my download queue! Yay. And I watched Glee yesterday, and despite being in the target audience- it was not good. Jane Lynch was brilliant, but the rest- ugh. Were the writers of this show ever actually teenagers? I got all excited because it was described as "Friday Night Lights if choir was more important than football." 'Well,' I thought, 'It *is* more important than football- this should be brilliant!' And it wasn't. Which made me cry just a little bit inside.