Panto-honed theatrics: Australia’s innovatively meta transition to colour television
Hands up, who else thought that the olden days were all in black and white when they were a kid?
There is still something a little weird about seeing colour photography of the world prior to the 1950s. This is absolutely not to slag off the talented artists who either took colour photographs back then or have retouched film taken of the time to be in colour. Each of them has done a spectacular job in their own right. It’s a personal failing of the imagination, but one that I’m sure I share with countless other people of my generation.
In fairness to myself and other people my age, though, it’s an understandable attitude. After all, just look at the reaction that the introduction of colour TV had in the mid-1960s. You sift through footage from all over the world, and you’ll find serious-faced men in suits introducing the switch from black and white to colour with all the gravitas of the moon landings.
Some have a little more fun with it; Norway had a rope-cutting ceremony that turned into a rope-pulling ceremony, complete with pyrotechnics and streamers. Germany had a man pressing a large button (one quickly revealed to be red), but the vast majority of TV stations around the world kept it simple and severe. Most often introducing the switch is introduced during that day’s news broadcasts. Then you get Australia.
How did Australia introduce colour TV?
Trust the land down under to do things a little bit later than most, but with a lot more fun. Their changeover happened officially on March 1st, 1975, a full decade after most nations had introduced colour television, but with a lightness of touch that makes it a whole lot more loveable. For one thing, they brought back a beloved sitcom staple that had ended two years previously just for the sake of the introduction.
From 1972 to 1973, The Aunty Jack show had been one of the most popular shows on Australian TV. The madcap mix of The Young Ones and Mrs Brown’s Boys was a sensation despite lasting only one season. It made a star out of its lead, Graham Bond, and when the time came to bring colour to Australian TV, a five-minute special was commissioned in order to have a little fun with the concept, despite the fact that The Aunty Jack Show had ended with the eponymous character’s death. Keeping a strict sense of continuity wasn’t exactly an issue, I guess.
Thus, three minutes to midnight on February 28th, 1975, Aunty Jack Introduces Colour aired on ABC. The five-minute lark is still a bit of fun to this day, with the three main characters of Aunty Jack, Thin Arthur and Kid Eager gamely giving their best panto-honed theatrics as they try to fight back the flood of colour being thrown their way by The Colour Monster. Like most TV comedy from the 1970s, it hasn’t really aged well, but not in the outright disgusting way that most of it has, and it’s always nice to see some genuine fun being had with the medium of television.
I suppose they did have ten years to think of how they’d do it, so it’s just as well they got it right!