[4] The absence of government-mandated local content regulations meant Australian TV producers faced enormous challenges in trying to compete against imported American (and to a lesser extent British programs), which benefited from high budgets, an international talent pool, and huge economies of scale, thanks to their large domestic audiences and established worldwide distribution networks.
Many at the time expected that this honour would go to Graham Kennedy's variety series In Melbourne Tonight, which, although hugely popular in its home city, did not become a fully-fledged national hit until 1969.
Maggie Dence, however became the "face" of the series; she regularly featured in press articles and on magazine covers and was widely employed by the show's sponsor, Ampol, making well-attended promotional appearances all over the country.
Raye had asked friends in Britain for contacts in the Australian TV industry and this led to a meeting with (Sir) Charles Moses, then the General Manager of the ABC.
[6]: 160–161 Inspired by the BBC's That Was the Week That Was, Raye suggested a show based on TW3's format of topical satire, and although initially skeptical, Oswin agreed and allocated a budget of AU£1500 for pilot episode.
By chance, she had also been given an introduction to Gordon Chater, who immediately accepted her offer on the expectation that the new show would be a TV version of the famous Phillip St Revues, in which he had been starring.
During this period, Raye was also drafted in to help develop a show to be sponsored by the Bradmill textile company, and she was taken to The Music Hall at Neutral Bay, a popular theatre-restaurant presenting Victorian-style comedy-melodramas that featured considerable audience interaction.
The show opened with a heavily made-up Noeline Brown (as Mavis) in a mock interview with Jon Finlayson after which she performed a (deliberately awful) song-and-dance routine.
The sketches included topical items about then Prime Minister Robert Menzies and the Voyager disaster; Oz co-editor Richard Walsh provided an "Oz News" segment; Gordon Chater performed his popular slapstick routine, in which he performed a comic monologue while covering himself with food then squirting the resulting mess off with a soda siphon; there was also a serious interlude with a reading of a poem written by Kath Walker, later known as Oodgeroo Noonuccal.
The show concluded with the cast singing "Friends and Neighbours" off-camera, while footage of mob violence, war scenes and Ku Klux Klan rallies was played on screen.
[9]: 89 The appearance of Richard Walsh is notable because it established an explicit link between Mavis and the Sydney satirical magazine Oz, which at that time was the subject of a highly publicized censorship controversy.
The three Oz co-editors—Walsh, Richard Neville and Martin Sharp – had recently been charged with producing an obscene publication, relating to satirical articles and photographs published in the magazine's early editions.
In September 1964 the trio was found guilty of the obscenity charges, and there was a major public outcry when presiding magistrate Gerald Locke SM sentenced Walsh and Neville to six months' imprisonment with hard labour.
[10] The Oz-Mavis connection was reinforced on 15 November, four days after the pilot aired, when the Mavis stars appeared at the Sydney University Theatre as part of a benefit to raise money for the Oz defence appeal.
The benefit also featured radical Sydney proto-punk band The Missing Links and Homicide star Leonard Teale, who recited a "surfie" parody of Banjo Paterson's Clancy of the Overflow.
It was evident that the chemistry between the three stars was a crucial factor in its success, so Seven insisted that Raye should continue as co-star, whereas she had hoped to find a permanent female lead to replace her, so she could concentrate on production; as a compromise, Seven agreed to ease her workload by appointing Michael Plant as co-producer.
Seven wanted her to retain her, but Brown intended to go to England and since Seven had neglected to sign her to a contract, she left the show, to be replaced by actress Maggie Dence, although she returned to the series after her visit to the UK.
[14] When the show went national Carol Raye quickly found that juggling performance and production with the demands of raising a young family were becoming too much, so Seven agreed to recruit a co-producer; on Gordon Chater's suggestion they hired Michael Plant, who had started out writing scripts for radio star Grace Gibson before moving to Los Angeles, where he worked in film and TV.
At this stage Seven still felt it necessary to import talent from the UK, and her place was taken by British TV star Miriam Karlin, who was well known for her role as the gravel-voiced, chain-smoking shop steward in the popular BBC sitcom The Rag Trade.
Although the show continued to top the ratings, it was dealt another unexpected blow in late 1965 with the sudden death of Michael Plant (from an accidental overdose of sleeping tablets).
Phillips, like Raye, had started out as a juvenile performer in her native Britain and got her break on Australian TV as one of the panelists on the popular 1960s talk show Beauty and the Beast, hosted by Eric Baume.
Hugh Taylor succeeded Ron Way as director and the regular cast now comprised Creyton, Frazer, June Thody, Neva Carr Glyn and Noeline Brown (recently returned from her stint in the UK), with guest appearances by Stuart Wagstaff, Arlene Dorgan, pop singer Bryan Davies and Penny Ramsey.
On 12 February The Age reported that the Broadcasting Control Board was to investigate a sketch on that week's show which sent up the recent retirement announcement by Prime Minister Robert Menzies.
The Age item concluded with a comment from HSV-7's manager, Mr K. Cairns, who maintained that the sketch "in no way held Sir Robert up to ridicule", and stated that he had seen it himself and found it "extremely funny".
We'd gone past the stage of the channel being convinced they had to bring in somebody from overseas because we weren't strong enough people to carry the show ourselves.Angell also featured in one of the last events in the career of British comedian Tony Hancock.
He was becoming increasingly affected by drugs and alcohol, as evidenced by his shambolic stage appearances in Melbourne in October 1967; at the time of his Australian visit he was in the process of divorcing his second wife.