Hey Hey It’s Saturday (Channel 9 1971-1999 with Daryl Somers)

Australia / Channel 9 – Somers Carroll / x120 minute episodes / Broadcast 9 October 1971 – 21 November 1999

A long running staple of Australian TV, Hey Hey started out as a Saturday morning kids show it later graduated to a 6.30pm two hour slot. The show was presented throughout its run by Daryl Somers, Daryl was assisted by pink puppet Ozzie Ostrich (Ernie Carroll) from 1971-1994. The show was a mixture of comedy, chat, sketches etc, there were regular appearances by DJ Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum (from 1980 onwards) looking at the music scene in his own idiosyncratic way.

The show garnered “8 best of” specials and one of the shows most popular characters was a 6 foot tall duck and a head-on-a-stick Dicky Knee. Regulars throughout the shows run included Jacqui McDonald, Red Symons, Wilbur Wilde, Russell Gilbert, Andrew Fyfe, Livinia Nixon, Jo-beth Taylor, Trevor Marmalade, Denise Drysdale, ‘Plucka Duck’, Des “Animal” McKenna, Gavin Wood, Peter McKenna. Character voices were provided off screen by John Blackman (1972-1999). regular segments such as the long running Red Faces. This ‘talent’ contest spawned 8 high rating “Best Of” specials under the title Best and Worst of Red Faces.

Other specials to emerge from the show include 4×60 minuters called Hey Hey By Request (these emerged between 1993 and 1998) and Hey Hey It’s The Comedians, a pair of hour long compilations featuring the best of the stand up material from the show. Hey Hey was a show that was known as being a place where anything could happen and was uniquely Australian. Everybody who is anybody (from Madonna, Abba, Clint Eastwood, The Harlem Globetrotters etc) appeared as guests on the show.

In late 2014 Daryl Somers began a project to place many of the episodes online.

by Barry Bits