“Seriously” was a popular slogan in the 00s
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I’ve come across a portion of John Torv’s Music Video from 1985:
(Video shortened due to potential copyright issues on YouTube, the unedited video can be found here)
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Found this amongst the Bert Newton tributes, I’ve never heard of the the ABC Variety Theatre before, any one have any idea where it was?
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Coming up on Seven News Adelaide this Sunday… the great Adelaide channel swap
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Ok, I ended up in a rabbit hole and have a question - I googled the great Adelaide channel swap to find @TelevisionAU’s article about the grand event - where there is a mention of Fat Cat.
How is it that Fat Cat has become a big thing in Perth, despite having its genesis in Adelaide? Is it a byproduct of his association with Telethon?
I dont know why, but I’d always associated Fat Cat with being a Perth “thing” whereas Humphrey was from Adelaide - not sure how I came upon the former
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Although Fat Cat was created at TVW7 in Perth, the character was also extended to TVW’s sister station, SAS10 Adelaide, where it was played by different performers on programs like the Christmas telethons, the nightly bed-time reminders and the national Fat Cat And Friends.
Fat Cat continued to appear on Seven in Perth long after Fat Cat And Friends was taken off.
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The Adelaide station switch in 1987 saw Fat Cat and Friends move from ATV to HSV Melbourne and TVQ to BTQ Brisbane but stayed on air at TEN Sydney as ATN had Romper Room in 1988. Network Ten stations (except TEN) aired Mulligrubs. TEN took Mulligrubs the next year when Fat Cat moved to ATN.
First I’ve heard of that. Seems very unusual.
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I found some of the info from your historic guides. I remember the switch in Brisbane. Mulligrubs looked more interesting (or scary) depending on your opinion.
Programs like Shirl’s Neighbourhood was on Seven everywhere except in Brisbane where it aired on QTQ-9 because BTQ had Wombat. Different times indeed.
Shirl’s Neighbourhood was on Ten in Adelaide and Nine in Brisbane, while on Seven in Sydney and Melbourne. At the time, Fairfax owned ATN7 and QTQ9 and some programming followed suit. Sounds was also on QTQ for some time despite being a Seven production.
Networking arrangements were a lot more casual in the early 80s. I’d still be surprised of such a split arrangement by the late 80s re the pre school shows but it was an unusual time given changes triggered by the Adelaide swap over.
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Ok, I’m now confused - one the articles cited on Fat Cat’s Wikipedia page and a few that I found while googling seem to indicate he was Adelaidean
The only references to Perth that I can find seem to revolve around Telethon - Is it a case of there being two “versions” of the same character?
Deadset creepy - kind of started a trend of slightly creepy characters in Kids TV (including that faceless doll EC from Lift Off)
What is more surprising is that Network produced shows didn’t even air across the entire network in the late 80s. Like Mulligrubs was aired on Ten stations in 1988 except TEN Sydney. If they couldn’t find someone else to carry it, it just didn’t air in that city.
Perth even missing out on 80s gems like It’s A Knockout because of their 2 station thing.
Hard to fathom these days with multichannels, streaming, Foxtel and the internet.
I would double check that. Remember, too, that the change of Fat Cat And Friends from the Ten Network to Seven did not occur until mid-1988 given the show’s contractual obligation to Ten. Creating the even weirder situation where production of Fat Cat had to shift from SAS (old Ten) to ADS (new Ten) at the end of 1987 for six months to stay aligned with Network Ten for the first half of 1988. Then when Ten’s contract expired mid-year, it switched production back to SAS (new Seven) and then became a Seven Network product nationally. And at that time ADS created Mulligrubs as the replacement for Fat Cat across the Ten Network.
The character was created and appeared on local TV in Perth but also featured concurrently in Adelaide, and it was the Adelaide-based Fat Cat And Friends that went national. So you could probably say it was shared across both cities but it was the Adelaide-based show that gave it the national profile.
She appears at TVW-7 events including the recent Telethon and the upcoming Christmas Pageant to name a few. Fat Cat turned 50 a few months ago
Fat Cat continued on Ten after the Adelaide channel swap, it moved to Seven nationally by July 1988.
ATV10 schedule April 22, 1988
HSV7 schedule July 5, 1988
courtesy The Age archives.
Also on Seven that day, the annual State of Origin football match between Western Australia and Victoria from Subiaco, it was a highlight of the football season, it was a joy to hear WA commentators and see WA football presentation here in Victoria. As well as the match leads into the news.
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Flashback from tonight.
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And while SAS-7 were running with ‘Seven’s on the Move’, ADS-10 ran with ‘Give Me Ten - Adelaide Proud’.
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I always thought Fat Cat was male. The people inside the suit playing Fat Cat were usually male. I’m aware there was at least one female who wore the suit during the run of Fat Cat and Friends.
I still associate “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” more as the theme music to Fat Cat and Friends than I do as a Beatles song. I remember not being impressed when they replaced that theme, even though I was well past being in the show’s demographic by the time the change happened.
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