News Free Zone | |
---|---|
Genre | Comedy |
Created by | Maurice Murphy |
Starring | Grahame Bond |
Country of origin | Australia |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 50 |
Production | |
Running time | 30 mins |
Release | |
Original release | 29 July 1985 – 1985 |
Related | |
Aunty Jack Show |
News Free Zone was a 1985 Australian TV comedy show starring Grahame Bond. It was the idea of Maurice Murphy. [1]
It was intended to be an entire evening's entertainment in one half hour with no news (shown at 6pm, the same time the three commercial networks showed their evening news). It screened daily. [2]
The regular segments included:
Murphy says the program was based on his "absolute hatred of anything journalistic and philosophical" and an "absolute love of enjoyment and fun and the light side in life". He says it was based on his "personal attention span. Some programs have one minute of plot and 27 minutes of fill in. I've always wondered why we just didn't have the minute and forget about the other 27 minutes." [3]
Apart from Grahame Bond, there are no well-known faces in the cast. "The aim is to try and develop a program that doesn't have to come off," said Murphy. "The idea is just to have I fun. I hope News Free Zone builds up new faces." [3]
It was filmed in Adelaide. [4] The series ran on every weekday for ten weeks. [3]
The show was the lead-in for the new ABC news program The National. Ratings were poor. [5]
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