yes, another friday

Another Friday, and a slightly less gruelling one than the one I previously whinged about but still, phew. The weather atm is particularly strangely warm which is not necessarily nice (unless you like that sort of thing) and so whatever I spent quite a bit of time at the Public Records Office but actually looking at things from the National Archives - a bunch of episodes of The Garry McDonald Show and the rare gem of a 3-minute interview with Pip Proud apparently from GTK in 1970. I knew it was only a short appearance from Pip but I actually assumed it was him playing a song but no, he begins the segment by putting the tonearm on his new LP and then talking about it. He comes across as an extremely winning person, thoughtful and smart. 

The Garry McDonald Show is an intriguing piece of work, very colourful, a real feast. Some of it is hilarious and brilliant, still holds up. You could make a tremendous hour-long compile out of it, and an almost as hilarious two-hour. Then there are the bits that are just NSF the 21st century. I won't go into them. I wrote about one in the wikipedia page for the show, which I have been messing with for some weeks now. 

But just look at the production values on TGMcDS:

I mean I have to assume they shot all the opening and closing segments in one go, because they surely couldn't afford to hire an elephant for that long (it's real, and alive). 

All this and Cheetah too! 

It wasn't all fun and GMcD today, I have also been doing admin, including cat admin (kitty litter 15% off down the road). 

do you remember the garry mcdonald show

Sydney Morning Herald 27 August 1977 p. 10

Well me, I vaguely remember it and I've always felt a little bit deprived that it has never really been available since it first emerged almost 50 years ago, but I also think, now's kind of the time for it to be seen again, because apart from anything else, it deserves reappraisal now all the fools above are, if not gone, probably a bit less upset. 

Sydney Morning Herald 'Monday Guide' 25 July 1977 p. 1

There should be a word for the kind of memory I have of the show's Harry Butler parody - like, I know it happened and not because someone told me. I also remember the Mo McCackey episodes and that he tried to avoid bringing Norman Gunston in but ultimately he couldn't avoid it, and he did bring him in, in later eps. 

Anyway it's all at the National Archives and I'm going to watch a few. I'll tell you all about it when it happens. Oh, and here's one more religious objection:

Melbourne Age 24 August 1977 p. 12