The program was hosted by popular disc jockey Ken Sparkes, who was one of the main presenters at Melbourne pop radio station 3UZ.
It was originally shown in daily half-hour episodes, Monday–Friday at 5.30 pm; an additional one-hour special on Sundays was added later in the run of the series.
Scores of leading Melbourne and interstate pop acts appeared on the show during its two-year run, including Lynne Randell, Dinah Lee, Bobby & Laurie, Normie Rowe, Tony Worsely, Mike Furber, The Easybeats, MPD Ltd, The Elois, The Masters Apprentices, Steve & The Board and The Purple Hearts.
Alongside the appearances by local pop groups, the producers also came up with a simple and cost-effective way of showcasing current international hits.
The regular cast roster included Ian Meldrum, Tony Healey, David Bland, Alex Rappel, Lex Kaplan, Jillian Fitzgerald, Alex Silbersher, Leon Kammer, Chantal Contouri (later a star of Number 96), Grant Rule (later executive producer of Countdown), Norman Willison, pioneering 'go-go girl' Denise Drysdale, Shirley Reichman, Bob Pritchard and dancer Maggie Stewart (who met pop star Ronnie Burns on the show and later married him).
Pritchard recorded "Shoppin Around" , "Pretty Girl" and "Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha", which reached number four on the Australian charts.
In spite of her fair skin, Jillian Fitzgerald, chosen for her dancing ability, was given the "soul" category, and mimed to R&B classics like Ike and Tina's "River Deep Mountain High".
Ian Meldrum specialized in the then-popular, high-camp 1930s style numbers such as Peter & Gordon's "Lady Godiva" and the New Vaudeville Band's "Winchester Cathedral".
That practice reportedly led some viewers to believe that Fitzgerald was the actual singer of Aretha Franklin's "Respect", and that Meldrum had recorded "Winchester Cathedral".
Alex Silbersher was reportedly chased up three flights of stairs by a horde of girls when a promotion at a Sydney shopping centre got out of control.
The latter concern was borne out by Jim Keays' comments in his autobiography, in which he reported that The Masters Apprentices were invited on both shows so regularly that they eventually had to ration their appearances for fear of overexposure.
On 12 October 1966, Go-Set magazine reported that the show had been sold to an unspecified American television network and was to be aired to fifty million people,[3] but that never materialised.
Although the device of miming to overseas releases proved popular and highly cost-effective, it was in fact this very practice that brought about the demise of Kommotion—the series was cancelled in early 1967 after Australian Actors Equity imposed a ban on miming on all music TV shows, due to concerns that the practice was denying work to Australian musicians.