''Kommotion'' was a popular Australian "Top 40" pop music TV show that premiered in December 1964. The program was hosted by popular

disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include Radio personality, radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at nightclubs or music fes ...

Ken Sparkes, who was one of the main presenters at Melbourne pop radio station 3UZ. In 1965, after the end of his previous series, '' Teen Scene'', pop singer Johnny Chester became the associate producer of the program. It was produced by the Willard King organisation for Melbourne TV station ATV-0 (Channel 0) and was pre-recorded on videotape at the station's Nunawading studio. It was originally seen only in Melbourne, but was later relayed to interstate stations in the newly formed 0-10 Network as they came on line during 1965–66. The ''Kommotion'' format was a fast-paced, teenage Top 40 pop music show. 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. In August 1964 Channel 0 premiered its first pop TV program, ''

The Go!! Show ''The Go!! Show'' (also known simply as ''Go!!'') was an Australian popular music television series which was produced before a live audience and aired on Network Ten ATV-0, Melbourne, from August 1964 to August 1967, running one hour three nig ...

'' (or ''Go!!''). It proved such a ratings success that its original 13-episode contract was extended to 39 episodes after only seven weeks on air, and this encouraged Channel 0 to capitalise on this success by commissioning a second series that would appeal to younger viewers. Both programs showcased the emerging 'beat' pop trend, and provided an energetic alternative to the mainstream family-oriented variety format of the rival

Nine Network Nine Network (stylised 9Network, and commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of the five main free-to-air television ...

program, ''

Bandstand A bandstand (sometimes music kiosk) is a circular, semicircular or polygonal structure set in a park, garden, pier, or indoor space, designed to accommodate musical bands performing concerts. A simple construction, it both creates an ornamen ...

''. In combination, ''Go!!'' and ''Kommotion'' gave the nascent 0-10 Network an unbeatable lead in pop TV programming, with ''The Go!! Show'' alone regularly pulling in over 400,000 teenage viewers every week.

Format and presentation

Both ''Kommotion'' and ''Go!!'' featured the current beat-pop style, and both were strongly influenced by United Kingdom-based ''

Ready Steady Go! ''Ready Steady Go!'' (or ''RSG!'') was a British rock/pop music television programme broadcast every Friday evening from 9 August 1963 until 23 December 1966. It was conceived by Elkan Allan, head of Rediffusion TV. Allan wanted a light ente ...

'' and the Jack Good-produced American pop TV show, ''

Shindig! ''Shindig!'' is an American musical variety series which aired on ABC from September 16, 1964 to January 8, 1966. The show was hosted by Jimmy O'Neill, a disc jockey in Los Angeles, Although many local guest acts appeared on both shows, there were notable stylistic differences between them. ''The Go!! Show'' was more closely modelled on ''Ready, Steady, Go!'' and was aimed at a slightly older, more sophisticated audience, it featured more local music, and it cost more to produce. ''Kommotion'' was aimed at a younger teen audience and its style was more like ''Shindig!''. Early episodes featured a troupe of go-go dancers (a ''Shindig!'' trademark) and had more overseas hits than ''The Go!! Show'', although it did so by using local

lip sync Lip sync or lip synch (pronounced , like the word ''sink'', despite the Hard and soft C, spelling of the participial forms ''synced'' and ''syncing''), short for lip synchronization, is a technical term for matching a Speech, speaking or singin ...

artists. Fashion was another vital component of both shows: the Mod fashion trend prevalent in Melbourne, of the time, was visible in both shows. with another major influence being the BBC's perennial, ''

Top Of The Pops ''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British record chart television programme, made by the BBC and broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most of its histo ...

''. Jim Keays, a member of

The Masters Apprentices The Masters Apprentices (or The Masters to fans) are an Australian rock band fronted by Jim Keays on lead vocals, which originally formed as The Mustangs in 1964 in Adelaide, South Australia, relocated to Melbourne, Victoria, in February 1967 ...

, noted in his memoir ''His Masters Voice'' (1999), that ''Kommotion'' was a key influence on the 1970s and 1980s pop TV series, ''

Countdown A countdown is a sequence of backward counting to indicate the time remaining before an event is scheduled to occur. NASA commonly employs the terms "L-minus" and "T-minus" during the preparation for and anticipation of a rocket launch, and eve ...

''. It is no coincidence that some of the regular ''Kommotion'' on-air team went on to work on ''Countdown'', including talent coordinator and presenter,

Ian "Molly" Meldrum Ian Alexander "Molly" Meldrum Order of Australia, AM (born 29 January 1943) is an Australian music critic, journalist, record producer and musical entrepreneur. He was the talent coordinator, on-air interviewer, and music news presenter on the ...

, and future ''Countdown'' executive producer Grant Rule. Scores of leading Melbourne and interstate pop acts appeared on the show during its two-year run, including Lynne Randell,

Dinah Lee Diane Marie Jacobs (born 19 August 1943) known as Dinah Lee, is a New Zealand singer who performed 1960s pop and adult contemporary music. Her debut single from early 1964, "Don't You Know Yockomo?", achieved No. 1 chart success in New Zeal ...

Bobby & Laurie Bobby & Laurie were an Australian Beat music, beat pop duo of the 1960s, with Laurie Allen (1942–2002) on vocals, guitar and keyboards and Bobby Bright (born in Watford, England, 3 February 1945) on vocals and guitar. Their regular backing b ...

Normie Rowe Norman John Rowe (born 1 February 1947) is an Australian singer and songwriter. He rose to national prominence in the mid-1960s as a pop star and teen idol, backed by The Playboys. His 1965 double A-side " Que Sera Sera"/" Shakin' All Over" w ...

, Tony Worsely, Mike Furber,

The Easybeats The Easybeats were an Australian Rock music, rock band which formed in Sydney in late 1964. They are best known for their 1966 hit single "Friday on My Mind", which is regarded as the first Australian rock song to achieve international success ...

, MPD Ltd, The Elois,

, 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. In those days, purpose-made music videos (then called "film clips") were only just beginning to be used to promote new recordings. Australia's great distance from the US and the UK meant that visits by major overseas acts were relatively rare, so the stock-in-trade for ''Kommotion'' was to use a troupe of young performers who danced and/or mimed to the latest overseas hits. The producers hired a group of about a dozen Melbourne teenagers, chosen for their looks, fashion sense and dancing ability. The regular cast roster included Ian Meldrum, Tony Healey, David Bland, Alex Rappel, Lex Kaplan, Jillian Fitzgerald, Alex Silbersher, Leon Kammer,

Chantal Contouri Chantal Contouri (; born 8 April 1950), sometimes credited as Chantal Cantouri, is a Greek Australian television and film actress. She has acted in many films and TV series as well as on stage, with one of her best known roles being in the 197 ...

(later a star of '' Number 96''), Grant Rule (later executive producer of ''Countdown''), Norman Willison, pioneering 'go-go girl'

Denise Drysdale Denise Anne Christina Drysdale (born 5 December 1948) is an Australian television presenter, variety entertainer, actress, singer, dancer and comedian. She is often affectionately known as "Ding Dong", a nickname invented by fellow performer Er ...

, Shirley Reichman, Bob Pritchard and dancer Maggie Stewart (who met pop star Ronnie Burns on the show and later married him). Some performers such as Bob Pritchard went on to release records themselves. Pritchard recorded "Shoppin Around" , "Pretty Girl" and " Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha", which reached number four on the Australian charts. Pritchard also performed in TV dramas such as ''

Homicide Homicide is an act in which a person causes the death of another person. A homicide requires only a Volition (psychology), volitional act, or an omission, that causes the death of another, and thus a homicide may result from Accident, accidenta ...

'', ''

Division 4 ''Division 4'' is an Australian television police drama series broadcast by the Nine Network and created by Crawford Productions airing between 1969 and 1975 for 301 episodes. Synopsis The series was one of the first to follow up on the enor ...

'' and ''

Hunter Hunting is the human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, and killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to obtain the animal's body for meat and useful animal products ( fur/ hide, bone/tusks, ...

''. For the mimed segments, the producers matched the performers with a particular style of music. 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 The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity,Historic England. "Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity (1095509)". ''National Heritage List for England''. Retrieved 8 September 2014. Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Swithun, commonly known as Winches ...

". That practice reportedly led some viewers to believe that Fitzgerald was the actual singer of

Aretha Franklin Aretha Louise Franklin ( ; March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Honored as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Queen of Soul", she was twice named by ''Rolling Stone'' magazine as the Roll ...

's "Respect", and that Meldrum had recorded "Winchester Cathedral". Another member was RMIT student Keith Millar, who was a neighbour of Meldrum's, who lived with Ronnie Burns' family in Elwood. Millar was best known for Tommy Roe's "

Sweet Pea The sweet pea, ''Lathyrus odoratus'', is a flowering plant in the genus '' Lathyrus'' in the family Fabaceae ( legumes), native to Sicily, southern Italy and the Aegean Islands. It is an annual climbing plant, growing to a height of , where ...

". Several of the cast became virtual pop stars in their own right. Tony Healey was one of the most popular and, along with Bob Pritchard, had their own fan clubs. 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 addition of the one-hour Sunday ''Kommotion'' special evidently caused some controversy. An unattributed press clipping from the time, reproduced on the Laurie Allan tribute site, indicates that ''The Go!! Show'' producers, DYT, were concerned about the increased competition from their rival, which cost less to produce. The article suggested the move might saturate the pop market and lead to a drop in ratings all round, as well as over-exposing the relatively small pool of Australia's top-ranking pop talent. 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, but that never materialised.

Kommotion label

Like ''The Go!! Show'', the success of ''Kommotion'' also gave rise to a short-lived pop record label of the same name. The label was set up to promote artists who appeared on the show. It is believed to have been owned by pop entrepreneur

Ivan Dayman Ivan Howard Dayman (20 July 19201 October 1989) was an Australian music promoter, record producer, label owner and talent manager of the 1960s and 1970s, based first in Adelaide, then Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Although his career was brief � ...

. Some early releases were produced by

Nat Kipner Nathan Kipner (October 2, 1924 – December 1, 2009) was an American songwriter and record producer with a considerable career in Australia. He is remembered as the producer of the Bee Gees' first hit "Spicks and Specks (song), Spicks and Specks ...

(father of musician

Steve Kipner Stephen Alan Kipner (born 1950) is an Australian songwriter and record producer. He has produced a number of international hit songs such as Olivia Newton-John's "Physical (Olivia Newton-John song), Physical", Natasha Bedingfield's "These Words ...

), who went on to briefly manage and produce

The Bee Gees ''The'' is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the ...

before they left Australia, but most of the Kommotion Records releases were produced by Pat Aulton. The label folded in 1967 when Dayman's Sunshine promotions and recording company went broke, around the same time that the TV show was cancelled.

Series cancellation

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 The Actors' Equity Association (AEA), commonly called Actors' Equity or simply Equity, is an American labor union representing those who work in live theatrical performance. Performers appearing in live stage productions without a book or thro ...

imposed a ban on miming on all music TV shows, due to concerns that the practice was denying work to Australian musicians. Like many other Australian pop shows of the period, most of the original tapes of ''Kommotion'' were subsequently erased or disposed of. The small amount of material that has survived was copied from the Channel 0 archive in the 1990s and copies have since circulated widely among collectors of Australian popular music. The floor manager for both ''Kommotion'' and ''The Go!! Show'' was Ralph Baker, who became well known in Melbourne in the late 1960s as Melbourne's version of " Deadly Earnest", the late night horror movie presenter. There was a local 'Earnest' in several capitals, with Sydney's Ian Bannerman being the original. Baker subsequently became the original floor manager on 0-10's later pop show '' Uptight''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kommotion Australian music television series 1964 Australian television series debuts 1967 Australian television series endings Black-and-white Australian television shows Network 10 original programming

Format and presentation

Kommotion label

Series cancellation

See also

References

External links