Kommotion
In December 1965, the fledgling Australian Channel
0-10 (now Channel Ten) launched a teen music show called Kommotion.
At the time, most pop music shows were shown at the weekend,
but Kommotion went to air daily at 5:30 PM, the
prefect time for school kids. Indeed this was the first Australian
TV program to cash in on the young teenage market.
The show's concept was a throwback to the earliest
days of Australian television. A group of around a dozen Melbourne
teenagers, chosen for their looks, fashion sense and dancing
ability, were hired to mime to current hits by overseas artists.
One of those young stars was Ian
Meldrum, a young
mod journalist and leader of the St Kilda VFL cheer squad (who
would go on to become the most powerful personality in the
Australian music industry thanks to his mega-rating TV show, Countdown).
His fellow journalist, Tony Healey, was also picked as a regular
on the show. Another was ace go-go dancer Denise
Drysdale.
The host was disc jockey Ken Sparkes, who greeted the audience
with his trademark "Hi team . . . gang"
It was curiously inspiring television. Here was a
group of virtual unknowns who had been dragged off the streets of
Melbourne, placed in a studio and told to do what most teenagers
did in front of the bedroom mirror!
The producers liked to match each of the
performers with a certain style of music. Jillian Fitzgerald, a
girl chosen for her dancing ability, was given the soul category.
despite her fair skin. She also covered classics like Ike
& Tina's River Deep Mountain High. Ian Meldrum
specialised in the then-popular, high-camp 1930s style numbers.
Another of his turns was Peter &
Gordon's Lady
Godiva.
But it soon became obvious that what had begun as
an innocent and cheap means of presenting radio with pictures was
getting out of hand. The massive television audience apparently
believed that Jillian Fitzgerald was the true voice behind Aretha
Franklin's Respect. Ditto with Meldrum and his
'greatest hit' Winchester Cathedral. There are people
who still remind Molly how much they liked his version
of that song!
Many of the mime artists became virtual pop stars.
Tony Healey was one of the most popular. He even had a fan club.
Alex Silbersher, another of the Kommotion gang was
chased up three flights of stairs when a promotion at a Sydney
shopping centre got out of control.
The show was axed early in 1967 when Actors Equity
instigated a ban on miming to other people's songs. It was an
understandable reaction; there were real singers out there
struggling for recognition. Unfortunately, some of the Kommotion
gang
believed they actually could sing and formed a splinter group
called The Kommotion Rebels. They made appearances at
the Scene Discotheque, but their careers as genuine performers
were short-lived.
Most of the Kommotion gang settled
down to careers as lawyers, clothing manufacturers and PR
consultants. Only two (Meldrum and Drysdale) went on to successful
careers in showbiz, although Grant Rule became a TV executive.
Norm Willison died in suspicious circumstances of a drug overdose
in Sydney in 1978.
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