Robot Claw

I’ve been on TV certainly three times, and maybe four, that I know of. These were back in the dark days before PVR’s and the internet, and any chance of any of this being recorded was slim. Therefore I doubt any footage exists these days, which is a shame since I’d love to put it on the blog!

Amusingly, all three appearances were relatively close together, occurring within maybe a year of each other. The ‘first’ (see below) was in 1989, back when I was School Captain of SFX and looked like this:

There I am, looking snappy in my school uniform, hair gelled up and ears sticking out. Looking at this now, it’s remarkable how different I look…

Anyway, the responsibilities of the School Captains extended beyond the schoolyard, and both me and the girl captain (Joanne H) were frequently required to represent the school at various ceremonies and activites. I quite enjoyed this, even when I was expected to give a speech (which happened several times during the year). One such event was the dawn Anzac Day ceremony in Civic Park, Newcastle. Here’s a photo I found online of the same event held in 2009:

Back in 1989 it was held at exactly the same place, and the crowds were about the same size. I had to give a speech representing the next generation, thanking the oldies for their sacrifice in foreign wars. I dimly recall having essentially full control over the content of my speech (which I’m sure now was full of cliche and platitude) and barely doing any rehearsal. Before I spoke a girl captain from another school gave a very brief speech which I thought was awful. I’m sure mine wasn’t actually any better!

At any rate the NBN TV cameras were there, and a brief snippet of me speaking (probably the choicest platitude!) made it onto the evening news. I saw it at the time, as did many of my friends, but have no recollection of how I felt. I also believe I was interviewed at the ceremony by a newspaper reported, but if my name or comments ever appeared in print I have no idea.

Fast forward a bit, to the annual NBN telethon held later that year. Looking back on it now, the telethon was a quaint (and nowadays completely obsolete) way to raise money, but I used to enjoy it as a kid because you’d never know which ‘celebrity’ they’d wheel out next. Our school had raised quite a bit of money (including via a treasure hunt, which probably requires a blog entry of it’s own) and since I was both the captain and the guy who had organized much of the fund-raising it transpired I would go to the telethon to hand over a cheque live on the air.

So Joanne and I went, in the evening if I recall, in our school uniforms. We were both amused by how utterly hectic everything was backstage, but there must have been some order to the madness since at the alloted time we were pushed guided in front of the cameras and I said something empty and handed a cheque to the then-weatherman of the channel.

That photo is from 1997, but it’s more or less what I recall. Knowing NBN, it’s probably the same set! I remember after we got off the air (which lasted maybe 30 seconds) we were just ignored, and weren’t even really sure where to go. Joanne was a bit starstruck since there were a lot of pseudo-celebrities walking around, but they all ignored us as well.

Anyway, many, many people saw this appearance. For weeks I was hearing “Oh I saw you on the telethon!” from all and sundry. Those days were probably the height of my fame 🙂

The next appearance was in many ways simultaneously the worst and the best. It would have been in early 1990, during the very, very brief period of my 18th year when I drunk alcohol. Once again, NBN television was the culprit. On Friday and Saturday nights they had a roving crew that would go around the pubs and bars of Newcastle filming revelers and putting the funny stuff on TV between music videos in the early hours of the morning. As it happens, one time this film crew stopped a bunch of young drunken miscreants walking down Hunter Street, and one of them (who bore a startling resemblance to me) apparently raised aloft the giant bottle of brew he was carrying, open-bottle-style, and was heard to bellow: “I am the beast of bourbon!”

And this was filmed and went out on TV.

I never saw it. In fact almost no-one I knew did. Doubtless most of them at that point were either with me, or in a similar state elsewhere. I don’t think any of my family saw it, since they were probably all in bed. But amusingly, the mother of a friend of mine did see it, and this is how knowledge of the clip being aired got back to me. I don’t remember being filmed, although I don’t doubt it happened. I wish I could have seen it though. Thank god I wasn’t still school captain then (this was my first year of Uni), else Brother K may have had a stern word!

So those are my three certain TV claims-to-fame. But what of the fourth?

Well in Australia there was a beloved children’s show called Play School, and somewhere in my mind I wonder if I was ever on it? If I was I can’t remember, and I don’t actually remember anyone telling me I was. However for some reason the possibility exists in my mind that I may have been, so I’ll let an expert weigh in on the comments if that was indeed the case.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2012 at 9:24 am and is filed under Family, Time. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.