look at that dickhead in sydney who didn't get the joke

a ramble about twenty-odd years of tv tapings, with songs!

The last little bit of 2010 was a wild ride. I spent the evening of September 4 at a GNW recording, and until the early morning of September 5, my 21st birthday, with The Regs at a restaurant in Chinatown. We had been talking and talking and talking all through the night, and the poor owners were too polite to say anything, so they just locked the doors until we realised what time it was and finally made our exit. I think it was close to 1am at that point.

The final recording of the 2010 season occured on November 13. It wasn't like the previous two season finales with a big award show; from memory it was just a regular episode. But afterwards, we were milling about in the ABC foyer before one of the camera crew came up to us and started chatting before asking if we wanted to hang out at the backstage afterparty. At that point I started to panic, thinking there is not a chance in hell that I would actually be cool enough to hang back with the cast and crew of any TV show, let alone GNW.

And then we got the okay to come in, and I suddenly found myself in a room somewhat smaller than I'd anticipated, at the backstage afterparty.

I couldn't muster up the courage to say hello to any of the cast that night. I think I maybe gave a patheticly awkward little wave to some people, but that was as far as I got. Paul McDermott did breeze in at one point, ask "what the FUCK are you doing here?", and breeze back out. I'm not sure if he was being sarcastic or not.

I did find myself having a delightful conversation with Pam Swain, the producer of of the show and an absolute legend. She kept offering me wine, to which I had to tell her "I can't, I'm still on my Ps!" a few times before she found some lemonade for me to have so I wouldn't miss out on having something. We talked about the state of the world at that time, what interested us about television, and who our favourite Lateline host was. I can't remember who she said hers was

Pam passed away a few years ago. I cried when I found out. She was such a lovely woman.

I think it was close to 2am when we left, and to this day I'm amazed that I made it home alive that night. If accidentally going the wrong way up a one-way street in the Sydney CBD and almost getting my car stuck on the raised median wasn't enough, I was later finding myself driving along a dark, winding road and having periods where my eyes would be open, but absolutely nothing was registering. And these periods were becoming more frequent.

I later realised these were microsleeps.

For whatever reason, I had FBi Radio playing at the time, and whoever was on the Allnighter shift was playing songs from a compilation called "Russkie Wig-Out! Demented Surf/Electro/Exotica From Behind the Iron Curtain", one of them was this track. I truly do think that the fact this presenter was playing such unusual music was enough to keep my brain intrigued and alert and awake just long enough for me to make it home in one piece.

I bought a copy of that compilation the next day. I still have the receipt email, hence why I can still give you the exact date all that occured.

If the last little bit of 2010 was a wild ride, 2011 was a malfunctioning shitheap of a ride that needed a delicate rescue operation to get off of.

The GNW recordings moved from ABC Ultimo to Fox Studios, my girlfriend and I broke up, Green Onions was replaced by this song before the recordings started, the relationships amongst The Regs were slowly imploding, and Good News Week became Good News World.

It wasn't a popular change. I remember going to the recording of the first broadcast episode (I missed the pilot recording) and thinking it was all terribly disjointed but it might still be alright in the edit? I remember watching it back on telly (September 5, 2011) and being absolutely beyond gobsmacked at how badly it translated to TV.

I still went back to the next recording, for some reason. Maybe I was just still wanting some kind of relief from the rest of my life, I'm not sure. The crowd for episode two was nowhere near as large as the first one. Like, only about half the studio seats were filled. And the crowd would continue to steadily dwindle as the series progressed.

Someone in the crew (I won't say who) told us in confidence during one recording that it was purely Channel 10's decision to change the format of the show, and the cast and crew just had to go along with it. I think I was in a bit of disbelief at the time. Why on earth would Channel 10 do such a thing? In hindsight, I just think, "yeah, that tracks."

Even though the audience numbers were dwindling and that there were some weeks where I was the only Reg to turn up, the GNWorld tapings were worth it for two reasons. The first was the fact that pretty soon into the series, the cast realised that no one was watching on the telly, so they just made the show purely for the benefit of whoever could be bothered to turn up to see it live. There were so many in-jokes and callbacks to in-jokes, there was no way it would've made any sense to anyone watching who wasn't there. The second was witnessing Paul McDermott break character, just ever so briefly.

There was one week where none of The Regs could attend. I think I was away on a family holiday, the others had to work or had other things on. But anyway, we came back the following week, and as Paul addressed the small crowd his eyes suddenly darted around the room and he asked, with quite a fair bit of concern, "Have we even lost our Regs?"

And then we gave him a big stupid wave and he immediately snapped back into character, grumbling that no, we were still there.

We hung around after the recording of the final episode (which turned out to be a surprise double episode, and the air conditioning broke down halfway thorugh) and we got a chance to talk to Paul afterwards. He seemed genuinely chuffed and grateful that we turned up week after week. I got a photo of myself pulling a horrid face while standing in Adele's TV box. I can't find that photo at time of writing this.

:(

This one's not really tied to any particular show, to be honest. When I'd drive to and from Sydney, starting from when I'd go up for GNW, I'd plug my iPod into the AUX and usually start off by putting my songs on shuffle or putting on an album I'd been meaning to listen to, and then invariably end up listening to Severed Heads.

Particularly the "Come Visit The Big Bigot (With Dead Eyed Opened)" album, and particularly this track. I've no idea why. I think it was the general mood of the time.

Even after my self-imposed hiatus from TV recordings (which I'll talk about on a future page), I'll still put on this album on. It just fits, y'know?