Aunty Jack, Norman Gunston and ABC television comedy in the 1970s

In July 1970 TV Times columnist F C Kennedy

described a television landscape in which locally

produced programming was in the doldrums. He

reminded readers that Australian television

production was no longer in its infancy and

deserved none of the excuses which had propped

it up since its inception. Kennedy argued that the

same talentless lot that got in at the beginning

were still turning up like a pile of bad pennies:‘In

the early days of TV anybody remotely connected

with show business got his chance to become a

TV star. Unfortunately, some of those who

entered TV under these easy conditions are still

in’.