Arcade

1 9 8 0 (Australia)
1 x 90 minute episode
64 x 30 minute episodes (Axed after episode 30)

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 program included images of an actual shopping arcade in the Sydney North Shore suburb of Cremorne. The theme song to the series was sung by Doug Parkinson. 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 after only 30 episodes had been aired (It was replaced by re-runs of M*A*S*H). Bill Harmon died of cancer a year later