Australian Colonial gaming - the early 1800s

[The Breaker]

I actually live about two-minutes from Constitution Hill where the convicts made their "stand".

I grew up nearish to there. You could do the Rum Rebellion, perhaps Bligh escaped and made it to the Hawkebury garrison and brought those troops to Sydney to quash the rebellion.

[FramFramson]

Too bad you're not doing a later period. Something with Ned Kelly would be good for a hoot. 

[carlos marighela]

For me Colonial Oz will always be Gus Mercurio and Serge Lazareff.

Down Under television's finest hour.



P.S. And I include the marvellous and wondrous "Skippy" which is easily the best children's programme ever made since Logie Baird invented his Box of Wonders.

Ah Skippy, where would bored soldiers have been without her?

Purses lips and makes vague clicking sound...

'What's that Skip? Request fire mission?'

'Tchk, Tchk, Tchk'

'Enemy infantry platoon advancing in the open, grid three, four, niner, one , seven, two?'

'Tchk, Tchk.'

'Danger Close?'

etc etc.

[starkadder]

Skippy represented the most ingenious use of novelty tourist bottle openers ever conceived by the mind of Man.

[starkadder]

....and was so innocent in its world-view that you couldn't help but smile.

The set became a sort of Skippy-World for many years. They'd show episodes endlessly in a unair-conditioned tin shed. It was enjoyable hell.

For anyone confused by it, my reference to bottle-openers is about the need for close-up shots. Skippy often had to open doors, jars, newspapers, jewellery bags etc etc. The crew used a ghastly and macabre tourist souvenir available at the time. Two bottle openers about half a metre long. One end opened bottles. The other was a kangaroo fore-arm. The operator would twizzle the arms around to show how clever Skip was being.

It was the Sixties....
   

[carlos marighela]

A gentler time, when Australia lead the world. The Victa mower, the Hills Hoist and KGI, Kangaroo Generated Imagery. I suddenly feel all nostalgic. I've got an atavistic craving for a bottle of RC Cola. I wonder why that didn't last?

Fortunately for Bezzo, I don't think the ABC exported Adventure Island. John Michael Howson as a clown still makes me shudder. Actually I think Skippy was exported to something like 30 odd countries, making it Australia's second most highly watched program, right after 'Hey Dad'. 

[FramFramson]

Ah, the North American equivalent would probably be Lassie.

"Bark bark bark!"

"What's that Lassie? Timmy fell down the well?"