Adventure Island is an Australian television series for children which screened on the ABC from 11 September 1967 to 22 December 1972 (repeats of the 1969 to 1972 episodes ran from 1973 to 1976).
[2] The show was hosted by Nancy Cato (a cousin of the noted author of the same name) from 1967 to 1968 (her final pre-recorded episodes aired at the beginning of 1969) and Sue Donovan from 1969 to 1972.
Cato had been forced to leave The Magic Circle Club dramatically in 1966 after an on-set accident,[5] and she joined Adventure Island after her recovery.
In later episodes, Nancy would begin the show by bantering with puppets Gussie Galah, Crispian Cockatoo and Matilda Mouse, then read from the book.
Sue would then walk into the house where she would ad-lib with Crispian Cockatoo and Gracie Galah on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and with Maxie Mouse (Ernie Bourne) and a vertical waveform called Chi on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Each show would close with Sue talking to Samson the cat, but on Fridays she would click her fingers and magically transport herself to Diddley-Dum-Diddley for a sit-down chat and a cup of tea with all the characters.
On many occasions the usually dimwitted Clown (with sawdust for a brain and an appalling memory) would save the day with his uncanny ability to see through disguises, a skill not possessed by the other residents of the town.
Concerned that some children may become upset by the mischief created by the baddies or the dilemmas faced by the Diddley-Dum-Diddleys, it was common at times of high drama for a cast member to remind the young audience that "it always turns out all right on Fridays".
A brilliant McEwan creation, his intensely squawking voice, disruptive manner and constant teasing of Nancy Cato took the hilarious whining of Leonardo de Fun Bird (from The Magic Circle Club) to a completely new level.
No episodes of Adventure Island were produced in colour, since Australian TV was at that time broadcast in black-and-white, and there was evidently no plan to sell the program overseas.
Howson has said that in 1971 an American network expressed strong interest in the show and were only reluctant to make an offer due to its monochrome format.
The show's axing, announced in mid-1972, was highly controversial—not least because it was replaced by the American program Sesame Street—and an unprecedented flood of public protest ensued.
In the late 1970s ABC-TV management instituted a policy of "recycling" videotape as a cost-cutting measure and this was especially targeted at older programs made in B&W.
All departments of ABC-TV were obliged to surrender tapes and as a result a large amount of historically significant videotaped programming from the 1960s and early 1970s was erased.
However, the closure of the Gore Hill studios in Sydney in 2002–03 uncovered large amounts of uncatalogued film and video footage, including many hours of live performance footage from GTK and material other programs long thought to have been lost, including 'missing' portions of The Aunty Jack Show and it is therefore possible that more material from Adventure Island may have survived.
The donor, who was working at the ABC's Rippon Lea studios as a props staffer at the time, rescued the book from a dumpster where it had been discarded in 1988.
- Flower, Clown, Percy, Betty, Lisa, Sue, Miser, Hep Cat, Marlena, Fredd and Feefee, Godfrey, Bruce and the Boys in the Band.