Arcade
1 9 8 0 (Australia)
38 x 30 minute episodes (NB: Only 10 went to air)
 Arcade
was Bill Harmon's swansong in Australian television. Harmon, who
had worked in American TV in the 1950s, came to Australia in 1964
to work for NLT Productions and had been the driving force behind
the highly successful Number 96, which he and partner Don
Cash produced for the 0-10 Network in 1972.
After the death of Cash and the demise of Number 96,
Channel 10 Sydney asked Harmon to develop a serial for the 7:00pm
timeslot, always a difficult slot to fill given its mixed audience
demographic of children and adults.
The result was a familiar communal workplace, in this case a
shopping arcade, as a recurring location where the serial's
different characters and narratives mingled.
The series went into production in late 1979 with a lavish
budget of $1 Million. This was to be the first of many expensive
vehicles in such areas as news, variety, chat shows, drama and
current affairs which Rupert Murdoch's new management used to
bring better ratings to a network traditionally lagging behind the
other two commercial Australian networks
Most of the cast in this ill-fated venture are best forgotten.
However the serial did feature former cabaret and variety singer
Lorrae Desmond in the role of a Zsa Zsa Gabor-like larger than
life figure and was responsible for her being offered her role as
Shirley in A Country Practice.
The credits for the programme included images of an actual
shopping arcade in the Sydney North Shore suburb of Cremorne.
The serial received a hammering from newspaper TV critics and
instead of letting the show build a following, Channel 10 halted
production and cancelled the program. Bill Harmon died of cancer a
year later.
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