The Aunty Jack Show is 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.
The lead character, Aunty Jack was a unique comic creation – obese, moustachioed and gravel-voiced, part trucker and part pantomime dame – who habitually solved any problem by knocking people unconscious or threatening to "rip yer bloody arms off". Visually, she was unmistakable, dressed in a huge, tent-like blue velvet dress, football socks, workboots, and a golden boxing glove on her right hand. She rode a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and referred to everyone as "me little lovelies" – when she was not uttering her familiar threat: "I'll rip yer bloody arms off!", a phrase which immediately passed into the vernacular. The character was devised and played by Grahame Bond and was partly inspired by his overbearing Uncle Jack, whom he had disliked as a child, his grandfather Ben Doyle, and Dot Strong, the ABC's last official tea lady.
Background
Bond was already an accomplished writer, producer, comedian, singer, songwriter and guitarist by the time he graduated with an architecture degree from the University of Sydney. He cut his teeth writing and performing as a founder member and leading light of the university's legendary Architecture Revues from 1964 to 1969. It was here that he met and became friends with other Sydney students including scriptwriter Geoffrey Atherden, television and film director Maurice Murphy and Peter Weir, who would go on to become an internationally acclaimed film director. Through these stage revues Bond also met his longtime musical, writing and acting partner Rory O'Donoghue, who had begun his performing career playing The Artful Dodger in a Sydney production of the musical Oliver! as well as being the lead singer and guitarist in the Sydney rock bands the Pogs and Oakapple Day. O'Donoghue was 14 at the time he met Bond, when The Pogs were brought in to provide musical backing for one of the Architecture Revues.
After graduating, Bond and friends continued working together on a wide range of projects in radio, theatre, TV and film. He collaborated on several short films and stage pieces with Weir, and wrote and played in a number of stage comedies and revues. The success of Bond's work in the Architecture Revues led to a professional stage revue for the PACT Theatre Company, Balloon Dubloon (1969) with Weir, which in turn led to an invitation from festival director Sir Robert Helpmann to stage a revue, Drip Dry Dreams at the Adelaide Festival and Richbrooke.
Through Bob Allnutt, a staffer at the PACT Theatre Company who also worked for the ABC's Religious Affairs Department, Weir, Bond was one of a group of people commissioned to produce a TV special, Man on a Green Bike, a fantasy that examined three different views of Christmas; this screened on ABC-TV at the end of December 1969. The 50-minute film, which is Bond's first known TV appearance, was co-written by and starred Bond and Weir, with Geoff Malone, James Dellit, and Anna Nygh. The story concerned three men, once friends sharing many adventures, who are now mayors of three cities—medieval Ackley, the futuristic Cadmium, and Petal Lake, a community reminiscent of the 1930s. Into their midst comes the strange figure of Mr. Maloon, a man travelling on a heavily laden green bike, whose presence disturbs and embarrasses the mayors.
During 1970, Bond, Weir and co. created and performed the revue Filth at the Phillip St Revue, followed by Hamlet on Ice at the Nimrod Theatre. Bond's friendship with Weir led to him writing the music for the three-part AFI Award-winning 1970 film Three To Go (in which he also had a small acting role), for which Weir directed one segment. Bond also provided the music and played a leading role in Weir's first film, the 1971 short feature Homesdale.
Origin
Aunty Jack was created for a proposed ABC Radio children's radio series, The Aunty Jack Show, commissioned by Paddy Conroy (former head of ABC TV and now cable channel manager). It was intended to replace the long-running children's radio series The Argonauts Club, which was about to be cancelled. The new series did not go to air because ABC executives felt that the Aunty Jack character and some of Bond's songs were "inappropriate" for young listeners.
The Aunty Jack character made her TV debut in Aunty Jack's Travelling Show, an episode of ABC-TV's The Comedy Game, broadcast in late 1971. It was originally to be called Aunty Jack's Travelling Abattoirs but ABC executives objected to the title. The program featured Bond, O'Donoghue and Derum, with Sharman Mellick and Kate Fitzpatrick in supporting roles.
This marked the start of a fruitful partnership between Bond, O'Donoghue and ABC writer, producer and director Maurice Murphy. They became the creative nucleus for a string of programs that strongly influenced TV comedy in Australia.
Influences
Although frequently compared to Monty Python's Flying Circus, as the two teams evidently shared the same love of surreal humour, Aunty Jack had existed conceptually before Bond or other show creators had seen Monty Python. Indeed, Aunty Jack's television debut took place an hour and a half before the British show was first screened in Australia on 30 December 1971 (The "Aunty Jack's Travelling Show" episode of The Comedy Game was screened at 7:30pm, Monty Python at 8:55pm). The Goons have also been mentioned as an inspiration, but in Johnson and Smiedt's history of Australian comedy Boom Boom, Bond himself said that he had listened to The Goons only occasionally. He mentioned Australian radio star Jack Davey, Bob Dyer, the Mickey Mouse Club and The Steve Allen Show as early interests, but cited the surreal black humour of Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 as a major comedic influence.
Peter Weir was also involved behind the scenes in the early days of the series. He had been part of the university revues they had done together in the 1960s, and had a small part in Homesdale and was credited as a writer on the Aunty Jack's Travelling Show and four episodes of the subsequent series. He gave up performing just before The Aunty Jack Show, saying in a later interview: "We were very much in the vein of Monty Python, and I saw them in England and they were so superior to what we did… that was it. I told my writing partner I wanted to focus on films, I sold him my sketches and that was it. It was very difficult because he had just gotten a TV deal."
Maurice Murphy was a pivotal figure in this fertile era of Australian television comedy—he oversaw Aunty Jack and its various spin-off series, and also acted as a vital buffer between the Aunty Jack creative team and the ABC's conservative management. Ted Robinson, then a young director, got his break working for Murphy on the second series of Aunty Jack. Robinson later took over Murphy's mantle in the 1980s, producing some of the best Australian TV comedy series of the period, including The Big Gig and The Gillies Report. Interviewed for Mouthing Off, a history of Australian comedy, Robinson enthusiastically sang Murphy's praises:
:When I was brought in to work on the second series of The Aunty Jack Show, it was my first contact with television comedy, and I was amazed by the atmosphere of drive and energy that Maurice generated. He made it such an exciting time to be working in comedy because the creative climate under him was so open; nothing was considered too mad or bad or off-the-wall that it wouldn't be considered for broadcast. People like me were able to learn their craft 'on-air' in those days, which meant that we were able to make mistakes or even fail completely with programs and still have a job. Maurice encouraged us to take risks and experiment with comedy and I believe this resulted in some of the best and most innovative comedy ever seen on Australian television.
Aunty Jack's Travelling Show convinced the ABC to commission a short series, to be screened weekly. The Aunty Jack Show premiered on 16 November 1972 and became an immediate cult hit with younger audiences, although it was poorly received by critics. Some viewers found it too confronting, and according to Murphy, the ABC received hundreds of calls after the first episode, complaining about the violence, the "bad language" and especially about the drag aspect of the Aunty Jack character.
Public reaction and cancellation
208x208px|thumb| Flange Desire, Aunty Jack, Thin Arthur, and Narrator Neville in 1972
The adverse reaction was reportedly strong enough for the ABC to seriously consider taking the series off the air, but it is generally reported that impassioned pleas from the children of certain ABC executives saved the show from being cancelled. This would not be the team's last such run-in with management, however, and the tensions between the creative and bureaucratic elements in the ABC eventually came to a head with The Off Show in 1977.
Bond ended the show at the end of the second season by having Aunty Jack die of a heart attack, 'mortified' by the other cast members' 'dirty' language and content. Nevertheless, the cast was revived and returned for a special two years later to mark the inauguration of colour television in Australia on 1 March 1975. The special beat ABC's commercial rivals by beginning 3 minutes early, at 11:57 pm 28 February 1975 in black and white and then wiping to colour at midnight.
Episodes
Two series of The Aunty Jack Show were made in 1972 and 1973 respectively. The first series comprised seven episodes, the second six episodes. There were also two specials, one aired 8 June 1973 before the second series began in October, and a second aired in 1975 and an unaired pilot, before the series started. Each episode was built around a central theme.
Pilot (1971)
{| class="wikitable"
!No.
!Episode titles
!Original TV broadcast dates
|}
Series one (1972)
Regular cast:
:Grahame Bond – Aunty Jack
:John Derum – Narrator Neville
:Rory O'Donoghue – Thin Arthur
:Sandra McGregor – Flange Desire
{| class="wikitable"
!No.
!Episode title
!Additional cast
!Original TV broadcast dates
|-
|1
|Radio
|Terry Camilleri, Kate Fitzpatrick, Sharman Mellick
|16 November 1972
|-
|2
|War
|Paul Faranda, Greg Saunders
|23 November 1972
|-
|3
|Kulture
|Carla Hoogeveen, Sharman Mellick
|30 November 1972
|-
|4
|Anonymous
|Terry Camilleri, Chris Haywood, Carla Hoogeveen, Lex Marinos, Sharman Mellick
|7 December 1972
|-
|5
|Family
|Chris Haywood, Carla Hoogeveen, Lex Marinos, Sharman Mellick
|14 December 1972
|-
|6
|Sex
|James Bowles
|21 December 1972
|-
|7
|Horror
| -
|28 December 1972
|}
Special (1973)
{| class="wikitable"
!No.
!Episode titles
!Original TV broadcast dates
| Aux1 = 30 minutes
| Aux2 = 4:3
| ShortSummary =
The episode sees Channel 9 launching a new-look Aunty Jack Show, starring Kid Eager as Aunty Jack. Aunty Jack protests and takes back the show. Other skits include the Gong-fu skit, set in a Chinese Restaurant and a new segment 'What's on in Wollongong'.
:Woman on Television – Jane Harders
:Policeman – Rob Steele
;Note: The episode was released on the Aunty Jack Show Complete series 1 and 2 box set on DVD in 2006.