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Shock, Horror, Aunty!: Nov 20

This week look back on Aunty Jack, The Big Gig and the way swearing weaved its way into our TV language.

2013-11-19_0020This week on Shock, Horror, Aunty!, look back on Aunty Jack, The Big Gig and the way swearing weaved its way into our TV language.

Episode two starts with a look at some of the ABC programs that have shocked audiences with coarse language, and how
what is acceptable to viewers changes with time.

Rory O’Donoghue & Maurice Murphy talk about how using the dreaded B-word got a thousand complaint phone calls after the first episode of The Aunty Jack Show.

Wendy Harmer discusses the stream of complaints about language on The Big Gig.

Tracey Harvey takes us back to when she was the first person to say the C-word on an ABC TV show, in Pack of Women in 1986. David Hill explains how he dealt with the explosion of the F-word on the ABC in the early ‘90s

We look at the programs that got in trouble for discussing sex and drugs, and the shows that upset parents, including the first episode of Wayzgoose, that is perhaps the most inappropriate kids program the ABC has ever broadcast.

This episode also examines the racial stereotypes and the way indigenous people have been portrayed on ABC shows, and
features some excerpts from the boundary pushing first all Aboriginal show, Basically Black in 1973.

Phil Scott describes how offended actors walked off a Dingo Principle sketch.

Tim Ferguson relates how even some of the Doug Anthony All Stars loyal studio audience were offend by a KKK sketch on DAAS Kapital.

And, Rory O’Donoghue and Maurice Murphy talk about the most offensive sketch they ever produced, on Wollongong The
Brave in 1975.

Wednesday 20 November at 9:30pm on ABC1.

3 Responses

  1. Aunty Jack wasn’t just made up on the spot to fulfil contractual obligations. The show was originally intended for kids but the character and some of the material was deemed inappropriate. The character was created by Bond some time prior to the genesis of the show and had appeared on TV as early as 1971 in The Comedy Game.

  2. It’s strange how something that was considered funny in the early 1970s hasn’t travelled well over the years. I rented the Aunty Jack Show DVDs expecting to get a laugh and the infamous “wog lover” episode played first. I sampled the other episodes and they weren’t funny either.

    Many people might not be aware that The Aunty Jack Show was Plan B. Graham Bond and Rory O’Donoghue first produced a rather risque program called The Off Show for the ABC but the bosses stepped in less than 30 minutes before the first episode went to air and pulled it. They were told that the rest of the show couldn’t be screened in its current form, but since they had a contract to fulfill they had to come up with something else. Aunty Jack was then born.

    The show was produced in black and white for domestic consumption but some sketches were produced in colour, and these were compiled into a…

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