the last episode of dark and white pop TV in Australia”
Uncommon film of rare pop show Happening ’72 was as of late uncovered after previous host Jeff Phillips gave a tragically missing 2 inch reel to the Public Film and Sound Document.
The last-ever episode of the show finished up with a youthful Johnny Farnham singing For Once in My Life, trailed by a gathering goodbye with ’70s pop symbols Allison Durbin, Debbie Byrne, Issi Color and a youthful Ian Meldrum.
“after 50 years, it was opened up like Pandora’s Case. The NFSA sent it off to Canberra to get tidied up, found the last episode of the Event and said, ‘This is the last episode of high contrast pop TV in Australia.’ Bandstand shut prior in the year, Hit Scene with Dick Williams on a Saturday evening had wrapped up. We were the remainder of the Mohicans,” Phillips tells television This evening.
Happening ’70 was initially facilitated on ATV-0 by artist Ross D. Wyllie as a replacement to Uneasy. Broadcasting popular music for 4 hours each Saturday, it thusly changed its name to Happening ’71 and from there on Happening ’72 with have Jeff Phillips, who had won a 1970 Logie as Best New Ability for pop show Sounds Like Us on ABC.
As Phillips reviews, the show had the cream of Melbourne entertainers and groups, with Meldrum, then a Go-Set writer, giving his brand name pop surveys. As the last credits rolled, Meldrum was even hurled into a final resting place by the group (vision here).
“Ian did likewise that he’d do on Hello it’s Saturday, Commencement, Uneasy. He would come on the show with about six new collections and discuss them. He’d discuss visits and afterward he’d advance Chiko rolls, from memory.
“The main issue with Ian was that you couldn’t be sure if he’d be 30 minutes ahead of schedule or thirty minutes late.
“Everybody had long hair”
“Everybody had long hair. It was simply a question of how long. Exactly the same thing was said about the ringer lined pants. Yet, the beneficial thing about the show, I must say, is that in the whole time I was facilitating, there was never a contention with any band, any artist, since we as a whole sang fundamentally at similar scenes. Same clubs, same inns, same voyages through Queensland, WA and Adelaide, any place you went. We as a whole conversed with each other. It resembled a more distant family.