Adventure Island (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Adventure Island is an Australian television series for children which screened on the ABC
from 11 September 1967 to 22 December 1972 (repeats of the 1969-1972 episodes ran from 1973–1976). It was jointly created by Godfrey Philipp
, who produced the series, and actor-writer John Michael Howson, who also co-starred in the show. It typically aired from Monday to Friday and each story would stretch across a full week, reaching a resolution on Friday.
Adventure Island was a joint production of Godfrey Philipp Productions and the Australian Broadcasting Commission, pre-recorded on videotape at the ABC's studios in Ripponlea
, Melbourne
. It is believed to be the first program made by the ABC in collaboration with an outside production company. Production was usually five weeks ahead of broadcast. It was a pantomime
-style series set in the kingdom of Diddley-Dum-Diddley. The show was hosted by Nancy Cato (not the noted author) from 1967 to 1968 (her final pre-recorded episodes aired at the beginning of 1969) and Sue Donovan
from 1969 to 1972.
Other characters were played by guest artists such as Vivean Gray
(playing Mother Sparkle, who became Mother Tinkle—more famously Mrs Jessup in The Sullivans
and Mrs Mangle in Neighbours
), Patsy King
, Brian Hannan, Frank Rich
, Mary Hardy, Angela O'Toole and Lindsay Edwards.
children's programme The Magic Circle Club, the ABC immediately approached its producers with a proposal to immediately take over production of the show. This was very quickly thwarted when TEN's then owner Reg Ansett refused to relinquish his network's rights to the show's name and premise, forcing Philipp and Howson to devise a lookalike.
Adventure Islands creation was credited to both Philipp and Howson, although Liz Harris recalls Howson verbalising the show's entire premise and setting, as well as naming all the characters, during a short promotional aeroplane flight in mid-1967.
Each show would begin with Nancy in an enchanted wood (one of the show's few direct similarities with The Magic Circle Club). In early episodes, Nancy would sit down behind a tree-stump lecturn on which was poised a magic book, open the book and begin to read the story. The story would be based on a place called Adventure Island and the residents of its town of Diddley-Dum-Diddley, and viewers would see the story played out by the characters themselves.
In later episodes, Nancy would begin the show by bantering with puppets Gussie Galah, Crispian Cockatoo and Matilda Mouse, then read from the book. At the conclusion of each chapter Nancy would talk to a cat puppet, which was named Samson in a viewer competition early in the show's run.
(wife of actor Terence Donovan
and the mother of actor-singer Jason Donovan
) took over the hosting role in 1969 after Cato's unexpected departure. The show's basic structure remained, but each episode instead began with a conversation with a talking house (Mister House, later named Serendipity House in a viewer competition) voiced by Jack Manuel and sometimes Ernie Bourne). Sue would then walk into the house where she would ad-lib with Crispian Cockatoo and Gracie Galah on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and with Maxie Mouse (Ernie Bourne) and a vertical waveform called Chi on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A chime would sound to indicate it was time for Sue to read the book.
Each show would close with Sue talking to Samson the cat, but on Fridays she would click her fingers and magically transport herself to Diddley-Dum-Diddley for a sitdown chat and a cup of tea with all the characters.
The scripted part of the show—a story serialised over five days, Monday to Friday—usually involved the inhabitants of Diddley-Dum-Diddley being set upon or tricked in some way by one or more of the "baddies". On many occasions the usually dimwitted Clown (with sawdust for a brain and an appalling memory) would save the day with his uncanny ability to see through disguises, a skill not possessed by the other residents of the town.
Some weeks' episodes would include no baddies at all, but instead centre around a visitor to Diddley-Dum-Diddley, often a relative of one of the characters, or a business-person or entrepreneur of some sort.
Concerned that some children may become upset by the mischief created by the baddies or the dilemmas faced by the Diddley-Dum-Diddleys, it was common at times of high drama for a cast member to remind the young audience that "it always turns out all right on Fridays".
The highly melodramatic, overplayed tone of the show was rooted in very traditional camp and pantomime traditions, and utilised a genre of light entertainment and humour appreciated by children for its simplicity and by adults for its escapism and sly nods.
. After Rowland departed the show in 1971 many of the songs he had written were reused in later episodes. Rowland found great fame and respect during the '70s and '80s in the field of movie soundtracks. His replacement was Alan Teak.
The songs were almost always pre-recorded on Thursdays, then pressed to acetate
and given to the actors to take home and learn so they could be accurately lip-synched during taping. A notable exception to the pre-recording rule was John Michael Howson's outstanding and moving live-to-camera performance of A Clown Without A Smile in episode 1174 (one of only a handful of episodes that have survived).
The puppets which appeared on Adventure Island were:
Gussie Galah, operated by Colin McEwan (1967–68)
Crispian Cockatoo, operated by Ernie Bourne (1967–72)
Matilda Mouse, operated by Marion Edward (1967–68)
Samson (cat), operated by Ernie Bourne (1967–72)
Gracie Galah, operated by Brian Crossley (1969–72)
Maxie Mouse, operated by Ernie Bourne (1969–72)
A female version of Samson, operated by Liz Harris, appeared for several weeks in 1971 when Ernie Bourne was forced to take a break for health reasons.
Gussie is probably the most notorious, but least remembered, puppet character on Adventure Island. A brilliant McEwan creation, his intensely squawking voice, disruptive manner and constant teasing of Nancy Cato took the hilarious whining of Leonardo de Fun Bird (from The Magic Circle Club) to a completely new level. When McEwan left the show, Gussie was replaced by a more cultured female galah, Gracie, who was slightly taller in stature.
Samson was a large hand puppet, similar to a Muppet. All the other puppets were mechanical creations. The operator would pull down on a rod, either underneath or inside the body of the puppet, to open the mouth or beak. The show's puppets were constructed by Axel Axelrad, who was typically named in the credits simply as "Axel".
Each Friday episode generally concluded with the hostess visiting Adventure Island and sitting with the characters to discuss the week's adventure. She would transport herself there by clicking her fingers.
Samson (the pussycat) was actually a magic cat who would be invisible until Monday afternoon's episode. To make him appear, the hostess would need to answer a question he would ask from "beyond". He would disappear again on Friday afternoons by sneezing.
Howson has said that in 1971 an American network expressed strong interest in the show and were only reluctant to make an offer due to its monochrome format. Howson proposed a solution to the ABC in which the entire five shows would be restaged on Tuesdays but this time filmed in colour—the cast and crew now totally familiar with the scripts, having performed them for the videotaped version on Sunday and Monday—but his proposal was met with total disinterest by the ABC and was never considered.
A brief piece of colour footage (actually an offcut from a 1972 ABC magazine show story on the show's closure) was aired for the first time in 1996 as part of an ABC 40th anniversary programme.
-- and an unprecedented flood of public protest ensued. A group of MPs headed by David Kennedy launched a "Save Adventure Island" campaign during which questions were asked in Parliament. However the campaign was unsuccessful and the final episode, number 1175, aired on 22 December 1972. Godfrey Philipp had been the mastermind behind the Australian Labor Party
's successful "It's Time
" campaign, which in 1972 brought about a change in government in Australia for the first time in 22 years, so the decision to cancel Adventure Island may have been politically rather than economically motivated.
titled Shirty, the slightly aggressive bear, a send-up of children's television, in which the Shirty character would commit various violent atrocities. In the final Shirty segment, it was revealed that the occupant of the bear suit was Russell Crowe
as his character from Romper Stomper
.
In the first episode of The Micallef Program
, host Shaun Micallef
introduces the supporting cast as being recycled from old ABC television programs, stating that viewers may recognise cast member Roz Hammond as "the horribly mutilated corpse from the final episode of Adventure Island. I think Clown is revealed as the psychopath in that one."
The Australian National Film & Sound Archive database National Film & Sound Archive contains listings for six episodes, preserved on 16mm film and in video copies—one from 1967, one from 1971, and four consecutive episodes (1171–1174) from 1972, which are among the last to have been produced.
The fate of Adventure Island is consistent with that of many other ABC-TV programs from the same period. In the late 1970s ABC-TV management instituted a policy of "recycling" videotape as a cost-cutting measure and this was especially targeted at older programs made in B&W. All departments of ABC-TV were obliged to surrender tapes and as a result a large amount of historically significant videotaped programming from the 1960s and early 1970s was erased.
It should be noted, however, the closure of the former Gore Hill
studios in Sydney in 2002-03 uncovered large amounts of uncatalogued film and video footage, including many hours of live performance footage from GTK and material other programs long thought to have been lost, including 'missing' portions of The Aunty Jack Show
and it is therefore possible that more material from Adventure Island may have survived.
The material currently presumed lost includes early episodes of Adventure Island, most of the videotaped studio segments from the pioneering current affairs program This Day Tonight
, nearly all episodes of the popular serials Bellbird
and Certain Women
, important drama productions like the miniseries The Norman Lindsay Festival (the first screen adaptations of the novels of Norman Lindsay
) and most of the first two years' of production of the popular music programs GTK and Countdown.
The collection of the Australian National Film & Sound Archive in Canberra contains a large amount of paper-based material from Adventure Island, including most of the scripts, production documentation and photographs relating to the show.
The Adventure Island storybook, from which Cato and Donovan read each day, is now part of the collection of Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. The donor, who was working at the ABC's Rippon Lea studios as a props staffer at the time, rescued the book from a dumpster where it had been discarded in 1988.
On 22 January 2009, the day after Ernie Bourne's death, the following notice appeared in Melbourne's Herald Sun
newspaper:
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...
from 11 September 1967 to 22 December 1972 (repeats of the 1969-1972 episodes ran from 1973–1976). It was jointly created by Godfrey Philipp
Godfrey Philipp
Godfrey Pettersson Philipp was a pioneering producer/director of Australian children's television during the 1960s and 1970s.Born in England in 1937, Philipp had been a child actor before emigrating to Australia...
, who produced the series, and actor-writer John Michael Howson, who also co-starred in the show. It typically aired from Monday to Friday and each story would stretch across a full week, reaching a resolution on Friday.
Adventure Island was a joint production of Godfrey Philipp Productions and the Australian Broadcasting Commission, pre-recorded on videotape at the ABC's studios in Ripponlea
Ripponlea, Victoria
Ripponlea is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is centered on the intersection of Glen Eira Road and Hotham Street, in the municipality of City of Port Phillip. In terms of its cadastral division, Ripponlea is in the parish of Prahran within the County of Bourke. As of the 2006 Census,...
, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
. It is believed to be the first program made by the ABC in collaboration with an outside production company. Production was usually five weeks ahead of broadcast. It was a pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
-style series set in the kingdom of Diddley-Dum-Diddley. The show was hosted by Nancy Cato (not the noted author) from 1967 to 1968 (her final pre-recorded episodes aired at the beginning of 1969) and Sue Donovan
Sue McIntosh
Sue McIntosh is a former news reader for Australian ABC News. She was known prior to the mid-1970s as Sue Donovan, from her marriage to actor Terence Donovan, which ended in divorce in 1973...
from 1969 to 1972.
Characters
Regular characters included:- Liza (Liz HarrisLiz HarrisElizabeth "Liz" Harris is a retired Australian stage and television actress who appeared on a number of popular television series and films from the mid-1960s up until her retirement in 1993...
) - Clown (John-Michael HowsonJohn-Michael HowsonJohn Michael Howson OAM, born in Melbourne, Australia in 1936, is an Australian writer, reporter and entertainer and 3AW commentator...
), - Mrs Flower Potts (Brian Crossley),
- Percy Panda (Jack ManuelJack ManuelJack Kenneth Manuel is an English cricketer. Manuel is a left-handed batsman who bowls right-arm off break. He was born in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire and educated at Wilnecote High School in Tamworth....
), - Dodo Panda (1967–1969) (Marion Edward),
- Betty Bruin (Carole WalkerCarole WalkerCarole Walker is a political news correspondent with the BBC and an occasional relief presenter on its news channel.She attended North Walsham Girls' High School in Norfolk, attached to the all-male Paston College, attended by Admiral Horatio Nelson, Stephen Fry and Craig Murray...
), - Jim (James Smilie).
- Baddies including Fester Fumble (Ernie BourneErnie BourneErnest Alfred "Ernie" Bourne was an English-born Australian actor, best known for his regular roles on television....
), Miser Meanie (Colin McEwanColin McEwanColin McEwan was an Australian television presenter and actor. He was best known for appearing on both stage and TV versions of The Naked Vicar Show, and for his role as Bob Bullpitt in Kingswood Country...
(1967–1968), Robert EssexRobert EssexRobert Essex may refer to:*Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, favourite courtier of Elizabeth I of England*Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, son of the above*Robert Capell, 10th Earl of Essex...
(1969–1972), Captain Crook (Ernie Bourne), Giggles Goblin (Peter Homewood) and Squire Squeezum (Burt Cooper).
Other characters were played by guest artists such as Vivean Gray
Vivean Gray
Vivean Gray is an English actress, who found her niche playing gossipy characters in Australian television series. In her early life, she lived in England but moved to Australia after she had trouble finding any acting opportunities...
(playing Mother Sparkle, who became Mother Tinkle—more famously Mrs Jessup in The Sullivans
The Sullivans
The Sullivans is an Australian drama television series produced by Crawford Productions which ran from 1976 until 1983. The series told the story of an average middle-classMelbourne family and the effect World War II had on their lives...
and Mrs Mangle in Neighbours
Neighbours
Neighbours is an Australian television soap opera first broadcast on the Seven Network on 18 March 1985. It was created by TV executive Reg Watson, who proposed the idea of making a show that focused on realistic stories and portrayed adults and teenagers who talk openly and solve their problems...
), Patsy King
Patsy King
Patsy King, is an Australian charactor actress ,a Melbourne theatre performer who trained as a Shakespearean actress with the Melbourne National Theatre; she spent her early days in the United Kingdom...
, Brian Hannan, Frank Rich
Frank Rich
Frank Rich is an American essayist and op-ed columnist who wrote for The New York Times from 1980, when he was appointed its chief theatre critic, until 2011...
, Mary Hardy, Angela O'Toole and Lindsay Edwards.
Pre-production
Following the May 1967 announcement of the imminent axing of the highly popular Independent Television SystemNetwork Ten
Network Ten , is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks. Owned-and-operated stations can be found in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, while affiliates extend the network to cover most of the country...
children's programme The Magic Circle Club, the ABC immediately approached its producers with a proposal to immediately take over production of the show. This was very quickly thwarted when TEN's then owner Reg Ansett refused to relinquish his network's rights to the show's name and premise, forcing Philipp and Howson to devise a lookalike.
Adventure Islands creation was credited to both Philipp and Howson, although Liz Harris recalls Howson verbalising the show's entire premise and setting, as well as naming all the characters, during a short promotional aeroplane flight in mid-1967.
Writing
Whereas on The Magic Circle Club Howson shared scriptwriting duties fairly equally with Peter Homewood and Max Bartlett, for Adventure Island Howson wrote most of the scripts, with others contributed by Peter Homewood. Howson also wrote four illustrated storybooks based on the show which were given a single limited print run. They quickly sold out and are now extremely rare.1967-68
Nancy Cato was Adventure Islands first host during 1967-68. Cato had been forced to leave The Magic Circle Club dramatically in 1966 after an on-set accident, and she joined Adventure Island after her recovery.Each show would begin with Nancy in an enchanted wood (one of the show's few direct similarities with The Magic Circle Club). In early episodes, Nancy would sit down behind a tree-stump lecturn on which was poised a magic book, open the book and begin to read the story. The story would be based on a place called Adventure Island and the residents of its town of Diddley-Dum-Diddley, and viewers would see the story played out by the characters themselves.
In later episodes, Nancy would begin the show by bantering with puppets Gussie Galah, Crispian Cockatoo and Matilda Mouse, then read from the book. At the conclusion of each chapter Nancy would talk to a cat puppet, which was named Samson in a viewer competition early in the show's run.
1969-72
Sue DonovanSue McIntosh
Sue McIntosh is a former news reader for Australian ABC News. She was known prior to the mid-1970s as Sue Donovan, from her marriage to actor Terence Donovan, which ended in divorce in 1973...
(wife of actor Terence Donovan
Terence Donovan (actor)
Terence Donovan , also known as Terry Donovan, is an English-born Australian actor and the father of fellow actor and entertainer Jason Donovan...
and the mother of actor-singer Jason Donovan
Jason Donovan
Jason Donovan is an Australian actor and singer. He initially achieved fame in the Australian soap opera Neighbours, before beginning a career in music in 1988. In the UK he has sold over 3 million records, and his début album Ten Good Reasons was one of the highest-selling albums of 1989...
) took over the hosting role in 1969 after Cato's unexpected departure. The show's basic structure remained, but each episode instead began with a conversation with a talking house (Mister House, later named Serendipity House in a viewer competition) voiced by Jack Manuel and sometimes Ernie Bourne). Sue would then walk into the house where she would ad-lib with Crispian Cockatoo and Gracie Galah on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and with Maxie Mouse (Ernie Bourne) and a vertical waveform called Chi on Tuesdays and Thursdays. A chime would sound to indicate it was time for Sue to read the book.
Each show would close with Sue talking to Samson the cat, but on Fridays she would click her fingers and magically transport herself to Diddley-Dum-Diddley for a sitdown chat and a cup of tea with all the characters.
Premise
The show was highly moralistic with a strong "good over evil" motif in every story.The scripted part of the show—a story serialised over five days, Monday to Friday—usually involved the inhabitants of Diddley-Dum-Diddley being set upon or tricked in some way by one or more of the "baddies". On many occasions the usually dimwitted Clown (with sawdust for a brain and an appalling memory) would save the day with his uncanny ability to see through disguises, a skill not possessed by the other residents of the town.
Some weeks' episodes would include no baddies at all, but instead centre around a visitor to Diddley-Dum-Diddley, often a relative of one of the characters, or a business-person or entrepreneur of some sort.
Concerned that some children may become upset by the mischief created by the baddies or the dilemmas faced by the Diddley-Dum-Diddleys, it was common at times of high drama for a cast member to remind the young audience that "it always turns out all right on Fridays".
The highly melodramatic, overplayed tone of the show was rooted in very traditional camp and pantomime traditions, and utilised a genre of light entertainment and humour appreciated by children for its simplicity and by adults for its escapism and sly nods.
Music
In true 'panto' style, music was an essential element of Adventure Island. Nearly every moment was accompanied by instrumental improvisation. Each episode contained two original songs relevant to the show's plot. The lyrics for these were typically written by the week's scriptwriter (either Howson or Homewood) and set to music by musical director Bruce RowlandBruce Rowland
Bruce Rowland is a well-known Australian composer. He composed the soundtrack for the 1982 movie "The Man from Snowy River", as well as the soundtrack for its 1988 sequel "The Man from Snowy River II"...
. After Rowland departed the show in 1971 many of the songs he had written were reused in later episodes. Rowland found great fame and respect during the '70s and '80s in the field of movie soundtracks. His replacement was Alan Teak.
The songs were almost always pre-recorded on Thursdays, then pressed to acetate
Acetate
An acetate is a derivative of acetic acid. This term includes salts and esters, as well as the anion found in solution. Most of the approximately 5 billion kilograms of acetic acid produced annually in industry are used in the production of acetates, which usually take the form of polymers. In...
and given to the actors to take home and learn so they could be accurately lip-synched during taping. A notable exception to the pre-recording rule was John Michael Howson's outstanding and moving live-to-camera performance of A Clown Without A Smile in episode 1174 (one of only a handful of episodes that have survived).
Puppets
In each episode's unscripted segments, the hostess would converse with puppet characters. It was at these points in the show that viewer contributions (drawings, riddles, jokes, etc.) would be aired.The puppets which appeared on Adventure Island were:
Gussie Galah, operated by Colin McEwan (1967–68)
Crispian Cockatoo, operated by Ernie Bourne (1967–72)
Matilda Mouse, operated by Marion Edward (1967–68)
Samson (cat), operated by Ernie Bourne (1967–72)
Gracie Galah, operated by Brian Crossley (1969–72)
Maxie Mouse, operated by Ernie Bourne (1969–72)
A female version of Samson, operated by Liz Harris, appeared for several weeks in 1971 when Ernie Bourne was forced to take a break for health reasons.
Gussie is probably the most notorious, but least remembered, puppet character on Adventure Island. A brilliant McEwan creation, his intensely squawking voice, disruptive manner and constant teasing of Nancy Cato took the hilarious whining of Leonardo de Fun Bird (from The Magic Circle Club) to a completely new level. When McEwan left the show, Gussie was replaced by a more cultured female galah, Gracie, who was slightly taller in stature.
Samson was a large hand puppet, similar to a Muppet. All the other puppets were mechanical creations. The operator would pull down on a rod, either underneath or inside the body of the puppet, to open the mouth or beak. The show's puppets were constructed by Axel Axelrad, who was typically named in the credits simply as "Axel".
Magic
As in The Magic Circle Club all of the characters in Adventure Island, including the hostesses, possessed magic powers which they could call upon if the need arose. These were used sparingly, most likely because of technical difficulties in performing videotape drop-edits with the cumbersome videotape technology of the day.Each Friday episode generally concluded with the hostess visiting Adventure Island and sitting with the characters to discuss the week's adventure. She would transport herself there by clicking her fingers.
Samson (the pussycat) was actually a magic cat who would be invisible until Monday afternoon's episode. To make him appear, the hostess would need to answer a question he would ask from "beyond". He would disappear again on Friday afternoons by sneezing.
Colour
No episodes of Adventure Island were produced in colour, since Australian TV was at that time broadcast in black-and-white, and there was evidently no plan to sell the program overseas. A popular belief by many viewers that the show was in colour could be attributed in large part to the brilliant sets which, for most of the show's run, were designed by Paul Cleveland.Howson has said that in 1971 an American network expressed strong interest in the show and were only reluctant to make an offer due to its monochrome format. Howson proposed a solution to the ABC in which the entire five shows would be restaged on Tuesdays but this time filmed in colour—the cast and crew now totally familiar with the scripts, having performed them for the videotaped version on Sunday and Monday—but his proposal was met with total disinterest by the ABC and was never considered.
A brief piece of colour footage (actually an offcut from a 1972 ABC magazine show story on the show's closure) was aired for the first time in 1996 as part of an ABC 40th anniversary programme.
Awards
- Adventure Island won the first TV Week Logie award in the newly-established category of Best Children's Show in 1969 (for programmes broadcast in 1968).
- In 1971, Sue Donovan won the Logie for Best Female Personality (VictoriaVictoria (Australia)Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
). - For his contribution to Australian children's television, Godfrey Philipp won a special Logie award in 1973. (In 1979, Godfrey's programme Rainbow won a further Logie for Outstanding Contribution To Children's TV.)
Cancellation
The show's axing, announced in mid-1972, was highly controversial—not least because it was replaced by the American program Sesame StreetSesame Street
Sesame Street has undergone significant changes in its history. According to writer Michael Davis, by the mid-1970s the show had become "an American institution". The cast and crew expanded during this time, including the hiring of women in the crew and additional minorities in the cast. The...
-- and an unprecedented flood of public protest ensued. A group of MPs headed by David Kennedy launched a "Save Adventure Island" campaign during which questions were asked in Parliament. However the campaign was unsuccessful and the final episode, number 1175, aired on 22 December 1972. Godfrey Philipp had been the mastermind behind the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
's successful "It's Time
It's Time
It's Time was a successful political campaign run by the Australian Labor Party under Gough Whitlam at the 1972 election in Australia. Campaigning on the perceived need for change after 23 years of conservative government, Labor put forward a raft of major policy proposals, accompanied by a...
" campaign, which in 1972 brought about a change in government in Australia for the first time in 22 years, so the decision to cancel Adventure Island may have been politically rather than economically motivated.
In popular culture
The costume for Percy Panda was used in a semi-regular segment on the ABC comedy The Late ShowThe Late Show (Australian TV series)
The Late Show was a popular Australian comedy show, which ran for two seasons on ABC from 18 July 1992 to 30 October 1993.-Cast:The Late Show has its roots in the 1980s comedy group, The D-Generation...
titled Shirty, the slightly aggressive bear, a send-up of children's television, in which the Shirty character would commit various violent atrocities. In the final Shirty segment, it was revealed that the occupant of the bear suit was Russell Crowe
Russell Crowe
Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealander Australian actor , film producer and musician. He came to international attention for his role as Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 historical epic film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor, a...
as his character from Romper Stomper
Romper Stomper
-Awards:The film was nominated for nine Australian Film Institute Awards. It won Best Achievement in Sound, Best Actor in a Lead Role and Best Original Music Score.-Box office and Reception:Romper Stomper grossed $3,165,034 at the box office in Australia,...
.
In the first episode of The Micallef Program
The Micallef Program
The Micallef Pogram is an Australian sketch comedy TV series hosted by Shaun Micallef, and written by Micallef and Gary McCaffrie, that ran from 1998 to 2001 on ABC TV. It was known as The Micallef Program in its first series, The Micallef Programme in its second series and The Micallef Pogram in...
, host Shaun Micallef
Shaun Micallef
Shaun Patrick Micallef is an Australian actor, comedian and writer. After ten years of working in insurance law as a solicitor in Adelaide, Micallef moved to Melbourne to pursue a full-time comedy career in 1993...
introduces the supporting cast as being recycled from old ABC television programs, stating that viewers may recognise cast member Roz Hammond as "the horribly mutilated corpse from the final episode of Adventure Island. I think Clown is revealed as the psychopath in that one."
Archival remnants
Much of the early episodes of Adventure Island appear to no longer exist. However, a search of the Australian National Archives http://www.naa.gov.au] reveals 1197 listings of audiovisual archival material for the program, most of which appears to be complete episodes stored as black and white film recordings. While there are a large number of duplicate episodes listed, a substantial number of episodes do still exist.The Australian National Film & Sound Archive database National Film & Sound Archive contains listings for six episodes, preserved on 16mm film and in video copies—one from 1967, one from 1971, and four consecutive episodes (1171–1174) from 1972, which are among the last to have been produced.
The fate of Adventure Island is consistent with that of many other ABC-TV programs from the same period. In the late 1970s ABC-TV management instituted a policy of "recycling" videotape as a cost-cutting measure and this was especially targeted at older programs made in B&W. All departments of ABC-TV were obliged to surrender tapes and as a result a large amount of historically significant videotaped programming from the 1960s and early 1970s was erased.
It should be noted, however, the closure of the former Gore Hill
Gore Hill, New South Wales
Gore Hill is an urban locality on the North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Gore Hill is located in the western part of the suburb of St Leonards....
studios in Sydney in 2002-03 uncovered large amounts of uncatalogued film and video footage, including many hours of live performance footage from GTK and material other programs long thought to have been lost, including 'missing' portions of The Aunty Jack Show
The Aunty Jack Show
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....
and it is therefore possible that more material from Adventure Island may have survived.
The material currently presumed lost includes early episodes of Adventure Island, most of the videotaped studio segments from the pioneering current affairs program This Day Tonight
This Day Tonight
This Day Tonight was an Australian Broadcasting Corporation current affairs program of the late 1960s and early 1970s.- Overview :...
, nearly all episodes of the popular serials Bellbird
Bellbird (TV series)
Bellbird was an Australian soap opera set in a small Victorian rural township. The series was produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation at its Ripponlea TV studios in Elsternwick, Melbourne, Victoria. The series was produced between 28 August 1967 and December 1977...
and Certain Women
Certain Women
Certain Women was an Australian television soap opera created by prominent Australian TV dramatist Tony Morphett and produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation between 1973 and 1976....
, important drama productions like the miniseries The Norman Lindsay Festival (the first screen adaptations of the novels of Norman Lindsay
Norman Lindsay
Norman Alfred William Lindsay was an Australian artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeler, and boxer. He was born in Creswick, Victoria....
) and most of the first two years' of production of the popular music programs GTK and Countdown.
The collection of the Australian National Film & Sound Archive in Canberra contains a large amount of paper-based material from Adventure Island, including most of the scripts, production documentation and photographs relating to the show.
The Adventure Island storybook, from which Cato and Donovan read each day, is now part of the collection of Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. The donor, who was working at the ABC's Rippon Lea studios as a props staffer at the time, rescued the book from a dumpster where it had been discarded in 1988.
In Memoriam
Several cast members of Adventure Island have died in recent years.- Colin McEwan - 22 August 2005 (64)
- Marion Edward
- Peter Homewood - 22 December 2008 (79, one day short of his 80th birthday)
- Ernie Bourne - 21 January 2009 (82)
On 22 January 2009, the day after Ernie Bourne's death, the following notice appeared in Melbourne's Herald Sun
Herald Sun
The Herald Sun is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia. It is published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Limited, itself a subsidiary of News Corporation. It is available for purchase throughout Melbourne, Regional Victoria, Tasmania, the Australian Capital...
newspaper:
BOURNE, Ernie - A dear, lovable and funny man who brightened the lives of children around Australia and his fellow Cast Members in the Magic Circle Club and Adventure Island. Goodbye Sir Jasper, farewell Fester Fumble and Samson.
- Flower, Clown, Percy, Betty, Lisa, Sue, Miser, Hep Cat, Marlena, Fredd and Feefee, Godfrey, Bruce and the Boys in the Band.