2 February, 2016. 11:34
ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
THE SEASON DEBUT OF Australia’s Got Talent raised eyebrows across the country last night as many where left wondering if the show did intended to showcase niche skill and expertise.
That was until this morning, when the show’s producers released a statement that this year, the show will feature more light entertainment and less talent.
“We don’t want to mislead our audience,” said one producer.
“Just to make things clear, we aren’t planning on showing any real talent this year. We just want to provide our audience with a safe environment to turn their brains off after work.”
Prior to the show’s filming earlier this year, there was some debate between the network and the production company of what constituted actual talent.
“When we put the feelers out to find some great Australian talent, what we came back with didn’t tickle the network very much,” said a senior production manager.
“Rather than have people dancing with dogs or beatbox, we through we’d get John Marsden to write a chapter or two. Just him on stage with a typewriter for a couple of hours.”
“Charlie Teo was ready to remove a brain tumour on live television.”
Having working at Channel 9 for nearly four decades, archivist Gary Campbell says the Australian television industry is missing something that it used to have.
“When I sit down and watch what the networks are spewing out these days, I get a little welled up and wish that Kerry was still stamping down the corridors around here,” said Campbell.
“He wouldn’t have stood for programming like this. That’s the reason why Channel 10 is even around. Whenever Kerry used to bin somebody for making terrible television, the blokes over at Ten would hire them. It would’ve had the same treatment as Australia’s Naughtiest Home Videos,”
Channel Nine’s infamous Australia’s Naughtiest Home Videos has the world record for the shortest series run of all time, with 15 minutes.
As the owner of the Nine Network at the time, Packer was informed of the show’s content by friends while at a dinner. He tuned in to watch the show, which was being transmitted on his network, and was so offended by its content that he phoned the studio operators and shouted, “Get that shit off the air!”
Within minutes, the series was pulled and replaced with a rerun of Cheers!
“Those were the days,” said Campbell.
