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Happy Birthday r-r-r-r-r-r-rage!

This month Rage celebrates 20 years on the ABC. A long-time favourite amongst music fans, the show has been a video clip staple on Friday and Saturday nights, especially on a landscape where music shows where shunned by TV networks.

To celebrate the anniversary, Rage will host a series of archive specials from 1987 – 2007 starting this Saturday night. And of course, there is a competition to Guest Programme for evening too.

The history of Rage is an interesting one, which first saw ABC staff manually loading video clips through the dead of night. Here’s some more info:

Rage first went to air on Friday 17th April 1987 at 11.55pm, and over the past 20 years has broadcast over 15,600 hours of music television. The current Rage library has in excess of 24,000 videos, and the Rage archive has many, many thousands more. Rage was the brainchild of ABC producer Mark Fitzgerald. His working title for the program was ‘Rage ’til you puke’. The Rage logo was designed in messy multi-colours in keeping with the ‘puke’ concept, and the faces in the opening titles are of various ABC staff.

The r-r-r-r-rage scream used for the opening titles has been called one of Australia’s greatest moments in voiceover. In the early days of rage, everything was done manually. Transmission people would put up the artist/song super as the videos went to air. To amuse themselves, and to keep awake, they changed the colour of the on-screen super to whatever suited the artist (Prince was always supered in purple).

In the first few weeks of Rage going to air, the ABC TV transmission people wondered if anyone was watching in the middle of the night. They ran a bottom-of-the-screen text telling viewers to call them. They regretted it. The phones didn’t stop ringing!

Over the years, hundreds of Guest Programmers have graced the Rage couch. Some of the first Australian Guest Programmers included Amanda Brown from The Go-Betweens, Rob Hirst from Midnight Oil, Alannah Russack from The Hummingbirds, Kate Ceberano and Andrew Denton.

International Guest Programmers include Mike Patton from Faith No More, Courtney Love, Marilyn Manson, The Living End and Primal Scream. Rage‘s Most Frequent Guest Programmer is Tex Perkins with five appearances on the Rage couch.

Saturday 7 April 2007
12:29am Fight For Your Right (To Party) – BEASTIE BOYS Sony
We Care A Lot – FAITH NO MORE Festival
America – KING KURT Polydor
Welcome To The Jungle – GUNS ‘N’ ROSES Universal (MCA)
What’s My Scene – HOODOO GURUS BMG
True Faith – NEW ORDER Festival
Sign O’ The Times – PRINCE Warner
Paid In Full – ERIC B & RAKIM Universal (MCA)

Full Playlist.

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