Maynard, formerly known as Maynard F# Crabbes, is an Australian entertainer, television presenter and radio announcer. He was a key figure in bringing the ABC's youth-oriented radio station Triple J to national prominence, and he worked at ABC radio and as a video presenter for many years. He appeared as himself in the Australian film The Castanet Club.
Since 2009, Maynard has branched out into providing podcasts, where he has become increasingly involved in the field of scepticism. In addition to his own podcasts, he is a regular featured reporter for the Australian sceptical podcast The Skeptic Zone. In 2017 the Planet Maynard podcast won the Comedy and Entertainment category from the Castaway Awards.[1]
Performing highlights
The Sydney Morning Herald summed up Maynard's performing career by saying "the man they call Maynard has been many things in his time, each incarnation usually more wacky and distinctive than the last."[2] Over his career, Maynard has changed the format of his shows often, but the common theme to his performance has always both lampooned and celebrated popular culture in a "quirky, energetic presenting style".[2]
His stage name "Maynard F# Crabbes" was first used in the Castanet Club as a tribute to Bob Denver's fictional beatnik character Maynard G. Krebs in the television show The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. It was progressively shortened, first to "Maynard Crabbes", and then to the mononym "Maynard"[3]
Musically, Maynard has made his career out of "guilty pleasures" – songs that are not fashionable, but are nevertheless loved by many people in secret. He described in an interview how this was a reaction against his primary source of fame: "Being breakfast announcer on Triple J automatically means you are one of the coolest people in the country … but I was never comfortable with that and I always liked to celebrate retro culture."[4]:13:10 He often uses the word "dag", an old-fashioned Australian slang word for "somebody who is happily unfashionable".[4]:12:10 His shows bring these into the open: "it's like dag group therapy. Once everyone gets together and admits it, they don't feel as guilty. The pleasure gets greater and the guilt gets less."[5] Similarly, he goes out of his way to defy fashion in his dress sense: loud Hawaiian shirts are one of his signature items,[6] and he is proud to make the "worst dressed" list on a society page.[7]
Live shows
The Castanet Club was a stage show that started in the steel town of Newcastle in 1982. It launched entertainment careers for several of its players: as well as Maynard there was Mikey Robbins, Steve Abbott (aka the Sandman), Glen Butcher and Play School presenter Angela Moore[8] (aka Shirley Purvis) – often under outrageous pseudonyms such as "Major Bum Sore and the Rough Riders"[9] As the Comedy-Cabaret-Big-Band show grew more successful, they toured nationally, including a sell-out season at the 1984 Adelaide Festival where they won the "Best of the Fringe" award against approximately 300 other performers from around the country.[10] The Castanet Club went on to play London and the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, where audiences and critics responded well: "They were an hilarious kaleidoscope of colour, music, movement, satire and goodwill."[11] This period is immortalised in the film they made in 1990, The Castanet Club.[12] Despite their on-stage craziness, the Castanet Club members were highly intelligent, perhaps best demonstrated when two separate members won the television quiz show Sale of the Century: Warren Coleman and Russell Cheek.[13][14][15] After nine years, the Castanet Club played their final show in 1991.
The Madd Club ran at the Piccadilly Hotel in Kings Cross from 1987 until 1994, with Maynard "surfing the zeitgeist of the bizarre and kooky ... with his onstage antics".[2] Snappy dressing was vital: "Maynard and his two cohorts ... wore a stylish combination of pyjamas and floral beach wear."[16] The show was consistently popular, filling the 400-seat venue even a Monday night,[2] and at its peak he again took this show on tour to London.[17]
In 1994, Fist Me | TV had Maynard and friends spending Friday and Saturday nights leaping around the stage at the popular club Kinselas, introducing celebrity guests, integrating some of his favourite television clips, playing along with a house band, and involving the audience in quizzes and karaoke. Two singles were chosen to sit at the "lovers' table" each night, and at the end the audience voted on whether they should have sex or not.[6]
In 2002, he hosted the eponymous Maynard Show across several Sydney venues.[2]
Radio
Maynard has been working in radio and television since 1981, initially as a volunteer at community radio station 2NUR-FM in Newcastle.[18] From December 1985, he hosted his own program Radio Stupid on radio 2SER in Sydney on Saturday mornings, with a format partly based on The Castanet Club stage show.[19]
He moved onto a platform with much greater exposure in the midnight-to-dawn shift on the ABC's youth-oriented radio station Triple J, and in 1987 he took over hosting their flagship Breakfast Show. At that time TripleJ only broadcast to Sydney, but in 1990 it began the expansion with took it to all the other Australian capital cities. The network achieved its highest-ever figures in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, often edging out commercial stations in their target 18- to 24-year-old group. Across Australia, he picked up an audience of more than 1.5million listeners with Maynard leading a small group "idiosyncratic announcers" who were regarded as "the soul of the station".[20] Maynard's Breakfast Show generally received positive reviews: The Sydney Morning Herald said that it "was consistently adventurous in the face of ever-increasing mediocrity"[21] while The Age said that his show "provide[d] a professionalism and youthful perspective that you are unlikely to hear on any other radio station."[22] In 1992, Maynard left the morning show, but he continued on TripleJ with Sunday Afternoon Fever, a four-hour show celebrating dance music and popular culture.[4]:10:20[23]
This was followed by stints on commercial radio with Newcastle's NEW-FM, [6] at Rhythm FM and as a field reporter for ABC Radio in Newcastle.[2][24]
His latest show The Dirty Disbelievers started on ABC Digital Radio across Australia in December 2011, with regular guests Richard Saunders, Rachael Dunlop and Jaimie Leonarder plus music segments. It was also made available as a podcast.[25]
Television
Maynard hosted several children's programs, starting on ABC television in the mid 1980s on The Afternoon Show with James Valentine,[4]:11:25 and in 1992 with his weekend game show Mind Twist on Ten.[23] Other children's shows followed for the ABC, as well as pop-culture projects for the ABC such as 30 Second Special with Jaimie Leonarder (aka Jay Katz).[26] He hosted regular shows on the Foxtel network from its first day broadcasting in Australia in 1995, including Planet Fx, a science fiction variety show that ran for two years on channel Fx, Rewind on the music channel Red, and later as a music presenter on Channel [V].[2][19] He also appeared in, or provided voice-over recordings for, advertisements on radio and television.[27]
Since 2010, Maynard has been a regular reporter and interviewer for the Australian sceptical podcast The Skeptic Zone. His own regular segment is Maynard's spooky action at a distance, named as a tribute to Albert Einstein's early criticism of quantum entanglement.[29] A highlight was when the show's listeners sponsored Maynard to attend and report on The Amaz!ng Meeting in Las Vegas, USA in 2012, where he conducted over 70 interviews in the course of the event.[30]:47:00 In an interview with Rob Palmer for Skeptical Inquirer, Saunders stated about Maynard, "His specialty is interviewing. He is the best interviewer on any Australian podcast."[31]
Starting in December 2011, his show The Dirty Disbelievers on ABC Digital Radio is also available as a podcast.[25]
In early 2014, Maynard teamed with Tim Ferguson to start a comedy podcast named Bunga Bunga.[32]
Social media
Beginning in April 2020 and continuing through May, Maynard presented a weekly video live-stream from his home. This "One man Madd Club" was broadcast live on Friday nights, with music, dancing, and multiple unnecessary costume changes. [33][34]
Maynard with one of his CD releases
Published works
Books
Crabbes, Maynard F# (1991). Maynard's Guide to Dag. North Ryde, N.S.W.: Angus & Robertson. ISBN020717363X.
Crabbes, Maynard F# (1992). Maynard's Dag Quiz Book. Chippendale, N.S.W.: Sun Australia. ISBN0725107103.
CDs
Maynard's Classics '90–'95 (2-disc set).
Maynard's Mirrorball Classics '95–'00 (2-disc set), released 20 January 2004 on the Central Station and MSI labels.[35]
Related Research Articles
Anthony Francis Martin is a New Zealand comedian, writer and actor, who has had a successful TV, radio, stand-up and film career in Australia.
William James Anderson is an Australian comedian, writer, presenter, and podcaster.
Adam Barrington Spencer is an Australian comedian, media personality and former radio presenter. He first came to fame when he won his round of the comedic talent search Raw Comedy in 1996. Soon thereafter, he began working at Triple J, on mid-dawn and drive shifts before hosting the Triple J Breakfast Show with Wil Anderson. He later hosted Breakfast on 702 ABC Sydney.
Redmond Symons is an Australian musician and television and radio personality. He was the lead guitarist in the band Skyhooks, the snide judge of 'Red Faces' and a judge on talent search show Australia's Got Talent. He hosted ABC Radio Melbourne's breakfast show from 2003 until 2017.
Karl Sven Woytek Sas Konkovitch Matthew Kruszelnicki, often referred to as "Dr Karl", is an Australian science communicator and populariser, who is known as an author and a science commentator on Australian radio, television, and podcasts.
Newcastle United Jets Football Club, commonly known as Newcastle Jets, is an Australian professional soccer club based in Newcastle, New South Wales. It competes in the country's premier competition, the A-League, under licence from the Australian Professional Leagues (APL). The club was formed in 2000 when it joined the National Soccer League (NSL) and was one of only three former NSL clubs to join in the formation of the A-League.
Australian Skeptics is a loose confederation of like-minded organisations across Australia that began in 1980. Australian Skeptics investigate paranormal and pseudoscientific claims using scientific methodologies. This page covers all Australian skeptical groups which are of this mindset. The name "Australian Skeptics" can be confused with one of the more prominent groups, "Australian Skeptics Inc", which is based in Sydney and is one of the central organising groups within Australian Skeptics.
Kitty Flanagan is an Australian comedian, writer and actress who works in Australia and the United Kingdom. She has also performed in France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Japan and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Montreal Just For Laughs festival.
Timothy Dorcen Langbene Ferguson is an Australian comedian, film director, screenwriter, author and screenwriting teacher.
Yumi Tasma Stynes is an Australian feminist podcaster and author. She is the presenter of the ABC Radio podcast Ladies, We Need to Talk about female health and sexuality. Between 2010 and 2012, she presented the morning television show The Circle and was previously a television presenter on Channel V Australia and Max. During 2013 she was a presenter on Sydney's Mix 106.5 FM radio breakfast program. A portrait of Stynes by Yoshio Honjo was a finalist for the 2022 Archibald Prize.
RAT Parties were a series of large dance parties held in Sydney, Australia during the 1980s and early 1990s. The Powerhouse Museum said that they "formed a key element of an emerging subculture" that was fashion-aware, gay-friendly, appreciated dance music and open, outrageous celebration. Along with the rise of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, the success of RAT Parties marked a groundswell of acceptance of Sydney's gay & lesbian community. RAT parties are credited with introducing the visual performance art of VJing to Australia.
Fairfax Media was a media company in Australia and New Zealand, with investments in newspaper, magazines, radio and digital properties. The company was founded by John Fairfax as John Fairfax and Sons, who purchased The Sydney Morning Herald in 1841. The Fairfax family retained control of the business until late in the 20th century.
Ali Abbas is an Iraqi-Australian footballer who last played for the Newcastle Jets in the A-League and the Iraq national team.
Richard Saunders is an Australian scientific skeptic and podcaster. In 2001, he was awarded a life membership by Australian Skeptics and has twice served as their president. He has presented on skepticism, represented the Australian Skeptics on television and radio shows, and is the co-host of The Skeptic Zone podcast.
Mikel Mason "Mikey" Robins is an Australian media personality, comedian and writer. He is best known for the satirical game show Good News Week, which ran on the ABC and Network Ten between 1996 and 2000, and returned again when the series was resurrected in February 2008.
Giles George Beresford Hardie is an Australian film critic, entertainment journalist, producer and television personality.
Bernard Zuel is an Australian music journalist. Zuel wrote for Fairfax Media newspapers The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald from 1992 to 2017. He became their senior music writer and reviewer. Zuel is a judge of the Australian Music Prize award. At the end of June 2017 he left Fairfax Media to become a freelance journalist and also taught music journalism.
Jesse Cox was an Australian radio producer, broadcaster, and documentary maker.
Norman Swan is a Scottish-born Australian physician, journalist and broadcaster.
The Castanet Club was an Australian cabaret collective from Newcastle Australia which spawned several well known media personalities.
↑ Letter from Einstein to Max Born, 3 March 1947; The Born-Einstein Letters; Correspondence between Albert Einstein and Max and Hedwig Born from 1916 to 1955, Walker, New York, 1971. (cited in M. P. Hobson; etal. "Quantum Entanglement and Communication Complexity (1998)": 1/13. CiteSeerX10.1.1.20.8324. Einstein used the German expression 'spukhafte Fernwirkung'{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help))
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
