Jacki Mac: will she or won’t she?
It's the hottest question on TV: Will Jacki MacDonald front for tonight's Hey Hey reunion? Last month she reflected on her career at QTQ's 50 Years of TV special.
- Published by David Knox
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With just hours to go there is still no confirmation from the Somers Carroll production team whether Jacki MacDonald will appear in tonight’s second and final Hey Hey it’s Saturday reunion.
And that’s just the way to play it.
Viewers will have to tune in to find out for sure if she’s back -helping to ensure another big audience. If she doesn’t show, well it was never really any guarantee was it? If she does, it will be the live television surprise of the night (good luck trying to keep it under wraps, guys!).
The show does have Ossie Ostrich, with 80yo Ernie Carroll returning, plus Denise Drysdale, JoBeth Taylor, Penne Denison, Trevor Marmalade and Harry Connick Jr.
In recent years MacDonald has been a busy mum, and as John Blackman recently told TV Tonight, heavily involved in horse and gymkhana activities.
But in August she did front up for QTQ’s 50 Years of Television special in which she spoke about some of her past glories.
MacDonald’s first foray onto TV was in being plucked from a TV studio audience, live on air. As a teenager she was far more boisterous than the respectable ladies being interviewed.
“They were mostly Miss Betties, beautifully groomed, with little linen dresses, single strand of pearls, French rolls and high heels, you know they were very gorgeous. And I was sitting in the audience wearing red and blue Mickey and Minnie mouse type shoes with red corduroy jeans and some sort of enormously bright red t-shirt, I can’t remember now, and long plaits like Pocahontas. And of course we were all giggling because they’d say now what are your hobbies and these ladies would say ‘Oh well we really like overseas travel and we particularly like crocheting and stamp collecting’
“So I hopped in the chair and they said, ‘Now what are your hobbies?’ and I said ‘Well, drinking, smoking and going out with wild blokes’ and you heard everyone go’ ‘Ah ha!’ The director and everyone laughed.”
It was enough to land her a job in television.
“I was about seventeen or eighteen or something. I’d just left boarding school. I was straight out of boarding school and I had no idea. Really I wanted to go to London and be an actress or something, but it totally changed the direction of my life. I didn’t go anywhere, I was here then forever.”
Developing her own zany style MacDonald came up with some outlandish, memorable pranks, including one with a budgie.
“I said I’m going to teach the budgie how to talk, it’s a really simple thing, you pop him in the kettle and so he can concentrate. Put the lid on so it’s nice and dark and then you put your mouth on the spout, and say ‘Hello hello’ down the spout so it echoes and he learns it really quickly.
“And then I said if that doesn’t work, you turn on the kettle and then he learns to tap-dance. And we did get into trouble because little kids would think that was a reasonable thing to do you know. We didn’t want to have budgies on-fire all over the city”
MacDonald even filmed her Funniest Home Videos at QTQ Brisbane.
“Yep I did the Funniest Home Videos here too and it was a great show, I used to love doing that. I used to laugh and laugh. I still laugh, I still do watch that, and I still laugh when you get the four fat old ladies like me and my friends sitting on the chair, one gets up and they all fall down, straight away I go ‘Ha, ha, ha!’
“I suppose I have one of those childish senses of humour,” she said.
23 Responses
lol Jackie … the queen of hey hey!!! so nice having her back!!!!
zany as!!
“folks are dumb, where i come from ~ “
Peter Ford has egg on his face.
well neon. you can do that and tbh no one cares. but 2 million other australians will watch it. i hope jackie is on tonight. she was fantastic when was on it years ago
@Kuttsywood: We certainly did know in Melbourne about Jacki’s more serious day job as a newsreader up north. It was well reported in press at the time (eg. TV Week) that she was working across different channels in Brisbane and Melbourne
David what radio station was Jackie on this morning?
Matt & Jo Show, Fox.
Neon Kitten the other 2 million plus who will watch will have a great night of entertainment………….
I have a contact who works for the AFP at Melb Airport and have given him the heads up also to be on the lookout, no sightings as yet though.
Its going to be another exciting show tonight with plenty of surprises…
My highlight will be Ossie and Jackie if she appears 😉
@ Neon Cat Just make sure you don’t have a drink with lemon or lime in it.
I saw JM at the Brissie airport this morning
@ sam: … and you know this for sure?
why on earth would she want to stand in the same studio as derwood sommers – she would no doubt like the rest of em..despise him
I recall they did a live cross to Jacki during Hey Hey’s last show a decade ago so it’s not unreasonable to assume they could do it again this time.
But being the showbiz guessing game that it is, it has everyone talking about tonight’s show!!
It’ll be another hit – Hey Hey in 2010 – you can count on it.
I bet you the only three people who know what Jacki’s doing, are Daryl, Gyngell and Jacki herself.
Jacki Mac can keep a secret from the public very well, remember around 26 years ago, when she read the 6pm weekday news in Brisbane on 0 (now Brisbane Ten) and did Hey Hey on Saturday mornings in Melbourne on Nine, and the viewers in one city never knew about the other.
On radio today she said: “Life is more interesting if I leave things to the last moment.”
I’m hearing unconfirmed whispers she is in.
I’ll wave at Neon Kitten from the other side of the bar!
Haven’t caught the promos. They shouldn’t be using her name on those if she’s not confirmed.
There’s always the chance it will be a Farnsy style live cross….
I’m just backing up what “Knowfirst” stated. Peter Ford also stated on Brisbane’s 4BC Radio station that Jacki was not appearing. Then again, for many many years Peter Ford said there was no chance of “Hey Hey” ever reuniting. So, we will soon see I guess!
I’ll be out with friends at a bar, drinking, laughing and not thinking for one second about this horror.
God bless jackie she’s a qld legend and i hope she’s on tonight. It was great seeing her on the QTQ 9 special recently and she still has the same haircut!
The promo about tonight’s show is all about Jacki, if she wasn’t going to be there they’d have stopped using her name.
She’ll be there giggling like a moron, just like old times.
I missed last weeks show (but saw most of it on YouTube) – I’ll be tuning in tonight for sure!
Good luck Darryl and team. I hope Nine bring you back for a Sunday evening show 7:30-9:30. There is rarely ever anything decent on on Sundays…
Peter Ford confirmed on 2UE yesterday morning that Jackie said no.