It was a different time… Rolf Harris hosts the Australia Day Live concert!
And it’s a big night of drama for Channel Ten. The Restless Years, Holiday Island and Punishment. All shows axed during 1981 just playing out their remaining episodes over the summer. TEN10 must have been keen to get The Restless Years out of the way before the ratings begins in February. They ran the final episodes as a 3-hour marathon on Friday 12 February, just days before the ratings kicks off the following Sunday!
It’s not listed as a premiere but I suspect this may have been the debut for Perfect Match as it debuted on the same date in Melbourne and I would be surprised if it appeared earlier in Adelaide.
Interesting to see Seven Adelaide airing In Search Of . I only ever remember that series going to air under the name Great Mysteries of the World in Sydney. I was aware of the original name because it was sometimes mentioned during the show. The Great Mysteries opener and Leonard Nimoy’s creepy narration always freaked me out as a kid and some of the subject matter (UFOs, Big Foot, Loch Ness Monster, Ghosts) was the stuff of nightmares. Surprised my parents let me watch it.
The show was topped and tailed by Scott Lambert in Sydney and aired on a Saturday or Sunday at 5pm (2x30min eps). I used to wonder how Scott managed to change his suit so quickly in time to read Seven National News at 6pm.
Did Melbourne and Brisbane use local presenters to introduce the show in the same way they did for other doco series like Our World and The World Around Us?
I had no idea In Search Of went by another name? In Melbourne it was always aired as In Search Of, usually on a Sunday afternoon. I’m not aware that it had any locally hosted intro, but it is not a show I watched often although I do remember the end credits strangely enough.
YouTube: texaswarhawk
I only just recently learned that Scott Lambert, Channel 7 presenter in Sydney in the 1980s, was the same as the actor Scott Lambert who appeared (and was blown to pieces) in Number 96 in the 1970s.
The repackaging as Great Mysteries of the World must’ve been a Sydney thing. The opener was very different to that clip you posted- it featured creepy orchestral music and a grainy black and white shot of Dracula attacking someone that had me covering my face with a cushion. That electronic theme played over the credits at the end, however.
One show that did used to freak me out back in the day was That’s Incredible. A lot of the segments on the show were cheesy stories about people doing heroic things or animals that could perform brain surgery, that sort of thing… but they also used to do segments about creepy things like ghosts or haunted houses or whatever and I could never get to sleep afterwards. It often meant I could stay up late and watch Skyways with my parents. So I think after a while I cottoned on to being “freaked out” watching That’s Incredible more often, because I quite liked Skyways
I wondered how he made the leap from Number 96 to newsreader when I learned he had been in that show. I’m guessing it had something to do with his looks and that magnificent porn star moustache he sported. I remember being disappointed when ATN replaced him with Greg Granger, a hard hitting Nine News reporter, on weekend news. The only evidence i can find of Lambert on You Tube is him introducing this Australia Day 1988 doco:
Enjoyed that show when I was a kid. Happy memories sitting around the TV with the family on a Saturday night watching “feel good” television. Can’t remember being particularly freaked out about it but I probably payed more attention during segments when they had animals doing stupid tricks. I do remember really enjoying and taking notice of the style of presentation from the three American hosts.
Used to always annoy me to see the 3 hosts introduce themselves to camera from the back of the studio audience, so naturally the audience was facing the stage and not them. I used to think how stupid to have the hosts behind the audience. I was 8 or 9 so I hadn’t really figured out that’s just theatrics for TV
You have me watching clips of the show on YouTube and I just noticed that along with the over enthusiasm of the audience yelling out “That’s Incredible” and clapping every time a host finishes a sentence.
It was very cheesy but for some reason the ghost stories stood out for me but as I said I think after a while I would just bung on the freak out act so I could stay up late
I vaguely recall a similar show called Real People. Possibly on Channel 10? But not as well known as That’s Incredible.
I don’t recall Real People but it’s interesting to note there were plenty of examples of reality television around back then before we the explosion of the genre saw it take over our screens towards the end of the 1990s.
Wasn’t this version of Family Feud a Channel Nine production between 1977 to 1984?
Daryl Somers on Channel Seven seems so unusual as he so affiliated with Nine…
Notice Kevin Crease presenting 6.30 news on Seven. It was in the middle of his decade-long stay at ADS-7 before returning to Nine in 1987.
Also, Nine Adelaide got a two hour highlights of one-day cricket in primetime, unlike in late 1980s and 1990s when local fans had to stay up until around midnight for highlights.
