The show was never far from controversy, but for a huge chunk of its 25 years The Footy Show was also must-see TV, including for non-football fans.
The AFL show drew upon Nine’s heritage of Live television from “Television City’ in Burnley Street, Richmond when it hit screens in 1994.
Anchor and producer Eddie McGuire tells TV Tonight a new two-part retrospective special, 30 Years of the Footy Show, began with a nod to the past.
“On the first ever show we did, when I walked out, we broke into the Don Lane theme song and that was an homage to all that had gone before us in Studio Nine, from Graham to Bert and Don, Ernie and Denise, all those great shows that we grew up with, with a nod to Lou (Richards), Jack (Dyer) and Bob (Davis) and the team at World of Sport on Seven,” he recalls.
“We were unashamedly saying that they were the great influences on us.”
“There wasn’t a whole lot of confidence around the network”
Nine’s ambitious new sports show went to air despite Nine not having any rights to AFL football, held determinedly by Seven.
“At that stage, it was widely considered no sports show would rate in prime time, and we ran into all sorts of opposition. First of all Seven, not letting us have any AFL vision. There wasn’t a whole lot of confidence around the network. I found out later in life that maybe it might last six weeks. But it lasted 25 years,” he continues.
“It came at a time when AFL football was in its infancy, from the switch out from VFL. You look back now, and seven years earlier, none of the commercial stations wanted the VFL. They up on the ABC for, I think, about $750,000 for the year and the game was pretty much broke. But in that period there was a changeover. The AFL came into play, and then suddenly it took off. In such a meaningful way, The Footy Show was able to reposition AFL football in a completely new light. It was a national competition, the players became the stars and from there, just about everybody who has hosted a show ever since, to do with football or sport in Melbourne, has come via The Footy Show.”
McGuire was joined by John ‘Sam’ Newman and comedian Trevor Marmalade. A studio audience and players as guests would add to the ‘danger’ of the Live show which previewed a weekend of matches and frequently broke big news in the AFL world. Denied AFL footage, the show became creative in expanding the content with segments which became TV infamy.
“We did Street Talk, which was originally about getting the voice of the people. It was vox pops,” he continues.
“Almost Footy Legends was an idea because we didn’t have any vision. Video cameras started to come into play and Funniest Home Videos was one of the number one shows on television. So we thought why don’t we get the local footy stuff and see what comes in? In the end it was one of the most popular and successful segments of the show.
“Then, of course, we got ambitious and started doing, the Grand Final show in front of 15,000 people, massive ratings and the biggest stars in the world all came on Joe Cocker, The Black Eyed Peas, and the first one we did with, we had John Farnham and Barnsey.
“I remember just standing there, almost dumbfounded”
“I remember just standing there, almost dumbfounded, at how big it was. We walked out on stage, suddenly, this show that was an idea basically, 18 months earlier gets 15,000 people, sold out in about 10 seconds, and you’re throwing to John Farnham to open your show. It was a long way from doing pie nights.”
Indeed the show had become a ratings success, dominating in its timeslot for decades.
“It was the number one grocery buyer demographic. It won every demographic there was -young people, older people, women.
“I’d get a call sometimes from (GTV9 boss) Ian Johnson saying, ‘If you go another 15, I reckon we’ll win the week!’”
In his element Sam Newman had a rare knack for Live television. If Nine had a King of Television in Graham Kennedy, Newman was vying to be court jester.
“Sam’s timing was just brilliant”
“Sam’s character, if you like, Sam Newman as opposed to John Newman, evolved over the period. I mean, early on, he was the bon-vivant if you like. He was the Geelong Grammar sophisticate, in a lot of ways, playing off the western suburbs Doug Hawkins and things like that. Then he changed and just became a life force of his own. Sam’s timing was just brilliant,” McGuire insists.
“Anyone who watched the show could see the brilliance of Sam. He knew what he was doing, and he enflamed people. Graham Kennedy got banned off air for doing things, and that’s what happened. That’s what live entertainment on Free to Air tevision used to be. You still see people really pushing the boundaries on Pay TV, YouTube and on socials. But that was the sort of avant garde medium in its day, Free to Air TV, and particularly live TV and that’s where Sam was so good.
“When I thought he was getting a bit too far, I’d tap him on one leg”
“He would pick up a thread and just run with it. We used to have a tacit agreement that when I thought he was getting a bit too far, I’d tap him on one leg and he could have another minute, otherwise it was time to change pace. But he knew what he was doing, and he was brilliant. He overdid it a couple of times. But as I said, so did Graham Kennedy.”
Indeed, Newman would frequently court controversy, often to attract media attention to the show, too often at the expense of others including Caroline Wilson, Nicky Winmar, AFL directors, indigenous and gay communities. There was ‘sin bin’ time from Nine management and more seriously, sponsor exits, network apologies and broadcasting breaches by ACMA resulting in heavy fines.
In 1989 when Nicky Winmar failed to front for an appearance, Newman made an impromptu decision to walk out on stage in blackface.
“I had no idea that he was doing it. Sam says he knew something was wrong when I looked up and said ‘Oh God.’ At that stage it was 3, 2, 1, (action) and I didn’t know where I was going to go with it…. We would have full on, animated discussions after shows on whether Sam thought I was censoring him or he’d gone somewhere that I didn’t think we should have gone, and various things like that. But that the great part of the show. We trusted each other implicitly …none of it was scripted, so we didn’t know where it was going.
“We sat down with Nicky and he came on the show a couple weeks later.”
“It can be frustrating at times”
McGuire, whose media and sporting career has also came in for its share of criticism, believes many forget the show’s other achievements.
“It can be frustrating at times that some things have happened, maybe late in the show, people miss out on how we completely reshaped football from 1994 through to the 2000s,” he maintains.
“They forget to say that we were the guys who really supported Michael Long in the first Long Walk and provided him with a platform and support.
“We used to sell all those (studio) tables for $10,000 – $20,000 a go. All the proceeds from the Grand Final Footy Show went to charities. We built houses. Shaun Crawford did his magnificent runs and rides across the country for Breast Cancer. We won a United Nations award for HIV / AIDS and the like. In our own way, it did a lot of opening up of ideas and opening of minds around football, around racism.”
McGuire doesn’t say which of the controversies will make the final cut of the retrospective (too offensive in 2024 perhaps?) but acknowledges, “I think things are addressed in it. I’m not quite sure. I haven’t seen the full cut, I’ve been at the Olympics, but it’ll be a good indication of everything.”
A second special will focus on the post-McGuire era helmed by Garry Lyon, James Brayshaw and briefly, Rebecca Maddern.
Interviews feature Garry Lyon, Sam Newman, Shane Crawford, Brendan Fevola, James Hird, Billy Brownless, Craig Hutchison, Jason Dunstall, Dermott Brereton, Jonathan Brown, Nathan Brown, Matthew Lloyd, Doug Hawkins, Campbell Brown, David Schwarz, Justin Madden, Damian Barrett, Craig Kelly and Roland Rocchiccioli. Also speaking are director Gary Newnham, Original Executive Producer Harvey Silver, Head of Wardrobe Katrina Henley and Cartoonist Andrew Fyfe.
Original co-host Trevor Marmalade declined to speak.
“There’s a big segment on Trevor but he declined to be involved,” says McGuire. “Sam, and I and he still catch up for lunch once a year or so. I just think he decided, that was a time in his career and that was it. But we’ve got plenty of Trevor in it.”
“It had just run its course”
The show ended in 2019 after more than 25 years.
“It had just run its course. It’s like Hey Hey, The Don Lane Show, all these shows come to a time and then probably need to be rebooted 5 or 10 years down the track, with a fresh look.
“But in a lot of ways, we threw open the locker room door to what goes on at footy clubs, the fun, the sending up and the seriousness at times.”
30 Years of the Footy Show. Tuesday August 20, 8:40pm Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth / 11:10pm Sydney & Brisbane on Nine.
(Part II is Tuesday, August 27).
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