THE NAKED CITY – THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN GERRY GEE

THE NAKED CITY – THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN GERRY GEE

Kids’ TV in Australia has come a long way since those innocent days of the late 50s when personalities such as King Corky, Desmond Tester, Princess Panda and Captain Fortune dominated the old black and white receivers. Recently we’ve seen the childhood experience morph into adult ‘reality’ with Channel Ten’s slickly produced Great Australian Spelling Bee. The moderately successful series, now flagged for a second season, took an old fashioned concept and dressed it up, with an infusion of back stage drama, for the modern audience.

It was the same well worn formula used in numerous reality shows like X Factor and Masterchef, where the personal stories of the contestants are played off against their successes and failures. In the Great Australian Spelling Bee we saw a bunch of highly precocious children attempting to spell words, the meaning of which they often didn’t know. Doting parents on the sidelines were very much part of the story, as was the cheerful encouragement of the comperes. Whilst it was competitive the producers obviously attempted to create a sense of camaraderie amongst the young folk so it never became too combative. Despite its contrived nature, if the series did promote literacy amongst younger viewers (and parents alike), then perhaps it was not such a bad thing.

Back in the 50s and early 60s children also got the chance to match intellects, but in a far less challenging way. Channel Nine’s Cabbage Quiz, hosted by British expat Desmond Tester, saw a group of kiddies face off with the promise of winning some great prizes. Answer a correct question and you got to hold a a prize – answer incorrectly and you were forced to take charge of a rather large cabbage. The idea was to hang onto everything  but if the cabbages stacked up, the hapless ten year-old would often drop the lot and go home empty handed. Maybe it was a metaphor for consumerism at large, but it also seemed a bit mean and heartless.

Less competitive were shows like GTV 9’s Tarax Happy Show in Melbourne, hosted by King Corky, “King Of The Kids” and featuring characters such as Professor Ratbaggy, Joffa Boy and the wildly popular ventriloquist’s doll Gerry Gee. Everybody was a winner on the show with much of its running time devoted to a seemingly endless line of kiddies queuing for their gift bags of Tarax and other sugary delights.

Perhaps the greatest cultural legacy of the show was the mass produced Gerry Gee ‘Junior’ doll, a scaled down version of the real Gerry Gee, operated by the remarkable Ron Blasket. Thousands were sold all over Australia and clubs formed where busloads of kids would take their Gerry and Geraldine Gee dolls for outings and picnics in the country. Long before digital technology the Gerry Doll was the Xbox of its time, a source of countless pleasure and a damn site more creative.

Now here’s an idea for the programming boffins at Channel Ten. If you can breathe new life into an almost century old concept like the Spelling Bee, why not consider ‘The Great Australian Gerry Gee’, where talented kiddies equipped with brand new Gerry Gee dolls, compete for the title of Australia’s best young ventriloquist. The original Gerry Doll was sold at auction for $17,000 in 1998. Channel Ten could easily budget to buy it back, and what a prize it would be at the end of the series as the legacy of this great Australian icon was revived for a whole new generation.

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