With the passing of the musical legend Burt Bacharach, let musical maestro George Hrab explain the intricate genius of his weird, but very wonderful songwriting while songstress Mari Wilson sings “Are You There?” live from 1983.
Enjoy the rest of the show featuring Bacharach lover Mari Wilson.
There’s a new Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons podcast from Luke at UFOcast. As guest presenter (Captain Aubergine) on the latest podcast, I look into the episode Traitor, in which Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue travel to exotic Australia to give a morale boosting Power Point presentation while secretly investigating possible sabotage and in the process they find out just how much Koala Base can bear.
Maynard, Captain Aubergine, reporting in from Spectrum Station, Sydney, Australia.
Man, this is a pretty exciting one set in Australia. I had to put my hand up for this one. The most exotic place that the Mysterons hardly ever go: Australia.
There’s no reporting as to how far this is from Lady Penelope’s sheep farm, Bonga Bonga. “Come in Bonga Bonga.” “Bonga Bonga to Mr Tracy. ‘Eer ladyship’s hout with the sheep.” And this quick trivia question: how many sheep at Bonga Bonga did Lady Penelope have in her flock? “There must be 200,000 animals on that station.” “200,007, sir, that’s the trouble. Her ladyship could only find 200,006.” And we know that because she had a digital ship counting meter.
But enough of that. Let’s go onto the serious, googly-eyed, spooky stuff from the Mystrerons. Or … are they? Just a word about the opening titles too. I, as a kid, and even now, I just love that first shot of Captain Blue, where he looks straight at the camera. And the shot of Colonel White: every time the Mysterons get on the blower, just look at his face. He turns around in his mobile desk: “Not this palaver again” – and you can just see that in his face.
We are going to Koala Base in Australia, where we’ll find out how much a Koala Base can bear. And the Australian accents aren’t too bad. The best accent, of course, is in the flashback sequence: Bud Tingwall, he’s the helicopter pilot. On ya Bud!
Gerry Anderson was quite prophetic because even to this day in Pitt Street, Sydney, you can’t move for the amount of hovercrafts that people use to get around in Australia.
“Spectrum will be torn apart from within”. That’s spooky. Captain Black there, dressed like an extremely over the top Goth DJ. You know he’s going home and listening to The Cure.
This thing could just be a huge suck in. I mean, you don’t have to believe what the Mysterons say. We think that’s just Spectrum that’s getting that, but imagine if they’re just annoying everybody in the entire world who’s trying to watch the final question on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”, and that comes on. “This is the voice of the Mysterons.” Ruins the whole thing. “We know that you can hear us Earth Men.” “Boo!”
So Colonel White goes downstairs to have a chat with the guys just hanging out in the Captain Scarlet, Captain Blue Bar by the look of it. And check out that bear skin rug. “Lieutenant Green.” “Yes, Colonel White.” “Where’s your hat?” “I want to see Captain Blue and Captain Scarlet, where are they?” “In the lounge, Sir.”
Check out what is on the table! My memory might be deceiving me here, but I remember in the 60s and it is still available: I think that is nothing less than a bottle of Drambuie on the table there. Back in the 60s it was unacceptable if you did not have Drambuie in the workplace. I bet Colonel White shot that bear himself.
So they’re ready to have a bit of a Drambuie and soda before they go off on their next adventure. I mean, it’s not as if Captain Scarlet has to be careful with what he drinks. “I’m afraid the whole episode is a complete blank.” Oh, also the 1960s massive group ashtray that would normally be seen on any table. You only see that kind of ash tray student accommodation these days.
But at Koala Base, they’ve lost three hovercraft in six days. You know what they say? To lose one hovercraft is careless, to lose three is just gotta be the Mysterons. Also you can’t use a Mysteron detector yet again because it’s a traitor. So it’s someone who hasn’t been Mysteron-ed and googly-eyed. Ah, that’s a new way to get out of having to use it. Normally it has to be blown up, lost or the batteries are flat.
Oh and a great scene of the Angels being launched there too, all of them being launched with all their harp action. And about the soundtrack: this is one of the few episodes of Captain Scarlet where all the recordings have been lost of it. “Traitor” is an episode where no original tapes survive, unfortunately. But just on a side note, have a look around the web and get on and have a listen to Barry Gray’s commercial work. He did a lot of commercial work, little jingles and stabs for all sorts of things in the UK and around Europe. That guy was a genius, and his music in this is not enough jazz flute, as in “Model Spy”, but still pretty good.
Also, while the series was in production, by this time they were behind a bit, so they had to make some cuttings to get some episodes coming in on time. And in this one, that’s why we had the longer flashback sequence. But they made sure that this flashback sequence was not used with another flashback sequence that they were going to use later in the series.
This episode was directed by Alan Perry (and there were some bits that were cut out that make the story seem a bit odd), written by Tony Barwick himself. The script man for Captain Scarlet.
Plus also taking the Mysterons at their word means that they can just trick you. They can go “We’re going to bomb Puerto Rico, everybody go to Puerto Rico!” and they bomb somewhere else. It could just be a huge Mysteron suck in.
As an Australian, I’ve got a problem with the dirt used in this. That is not what the Australian Outback looks like. Well, it doesn’t really look like a Lady Penelope’s sheep farm either, that was extremely lush and green. I think there’s been some of the soil used from the “Lunarville 7” episode, that’s ex-moon stuff they’ve used there. Koala Base looks like a very lush moonscape. But still, if you order a lot of orangey kind of coloured sand for your “Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons” set where else are you going to use it?
So Colonel White sends Captain Blue and Captain Scarlet to do a red hot PowerPoint presentation for the Cadets, because that’ll really increase morale. “The recruits are looking forward to your lectures.”
“I’m sure you’d like me to thank Captain Scarlet on your behalf for that most interesting lecture. Now if there are any questions?” “Captain Scarlet?” “Yeah, yeah, that lecture was really great and everything, but could you tell us about that time you died, and try not to leave out any of the really painful personal details? Could you tell us the time you died? You know, the big fall, and don’t leave out the bit with Bud Tingwell.”
Then we flash back to the footage of that fateful day, where it seems they did want to capture the World President alive once again. If you’d parked your car in that car station that day, and then Spectrum came along and completely knocked it down, you’d be just slightly irked. “Yeah, I’ll be home to pick up the kids. What? The car, what? What? The whole parking station’s gone? Oh, that’d be that Spectrum mob again, wouldn’t it? Them and their bloody helicopter.” “Spectrum Helicopter A42, what is your position?” “I’m already heading for London Car View. Will rendezvous in one minute.” Bud Tingwell!
Fashion wise, one of the only faults I can spot in this episode, “Traitor”, is that Captain Blue and Captain Scarlet don’t have matching blue and scarlet pajamas. That’d be cool!
And just on the whole Captain Scarlet sleeping issue, I’m surprised that guy can get any sleep with the amount of trauma he’s continually getting, being killed at least once or twice a week and coming back and getting killed again and coming back and he can sleep? He can close his eyes and go la-la-la… Come on! “Yes, I’m all right.”
But then in their sleeping quarters, fire breaks out in their quarters. It’s like someone left a Patchouli candle a bit too close to the curtain or something. Again in the crew huts, no smoke detectors. I guess it was the 60s, if you put a smoke detector in the hut, it’d be going off all the time because everyone would be having a puff on a Rothmans.
Also, in this episode, we get a rare, rare occurrence of Captain Scarlet cracking a funny: “Well, let’s hope spontaneous combustion doesn’t break out in here.”
And so now the episode “Traitor” changes from a search for a possible traitor to a whodunnit. Of course Trainee Machin suspects Captain Scarlet. Why would you suspect Captain Scarlet? Just because he’s a duplicate of the original person who’s died, made by the Mysterons, and had a mysterious, whoops, fall off a car park, and since then has been working with Spectrum as an exact copy of the original, not the original, and is no longer in the Mysteron’s power for some reason that doesn’t seem to happen to anyone else when they fall off a car park. I don’t know why you’d suspect him at all. That’s just silly. “Captain Scarlet would have access to all sections of Spectrum, including the plant where the hovercraft were made.” “What are you driving at?” “Just thinking.”
As it was originally filmed, it was intended to have a bit of a shadowy person moving around near the curtain, so it might give you a bit of a thought that, ah, who’s that? But that had to be cut for time. So after the mysterious fire the night before, they hop on for their hovercraft mission, and the temperature outside is 120 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 48.9 degrees Celsius. Hovercraft? You think they’d be designing for that. I bet you it never gets that hot at Lady Penelope’s sheep station.
“Well, if anything’s going to happen, now’s the time.” Everything’s going well until, uh oh, that hovercraft goes bung too. “We’re losing control!” And Machin gets the gun out on Captain Scarlet because there’s no reason you’d suspect him of being a traitor like I said. But interestingly enough, Captain Blue becomes the voice of reason: “Wait a minute, you’re jumping to conclusions. I might be the traitor, or anyone on the base.” “You’re trying to confuse me.” Then they get into it. “He’s a traitor.” “No, he’s the traitor.” Sort of a reverse “I’m Spartacus” situation going on here.
Captain Blue has the voice of reason, gets in between the whole thing and breaks the whole thing up because really it’s gonna go boom soon, everybody’s got to get out of the emergency exit. “Captain Blue, take these two to the escape hatch and get cleared. I’ll get the instrument recorder.” And some great hand modelling work there from Captain Scarlet, as he pulls the black box off the wall so they can find out what happened to this hovercraft. Did anybody think of looking at the other hovercrafts’ black boxes …? Don’t worry, don’t worry. “Time’s running out.”
“Well gentlemen.” “There’s our traitor: one tiny valve from the hovercraft hydraulic system caused all the trouble.” “Yes, Major.” “We have seen how the Mysterons play on the weaknesses of men.” Some philosophy there with Colonel White at the end. No apology. No well, sorry about the whole wanting to shoot you thing, it’s just yeah, you know, the Mysterons do what the Mysterons do. “We can only assume it is the work of the Mysterons.” The problem all this time has been … crap engineering! A faulty hydraulic valve. It seems the Mysterons have been able to alter the atomic structure of the very metal itself, or maybe there’s just some dodgy hydraulic valve manufacturer somewhere in Sheffield.
So does that mean the Mysterons put their googly eyes on the hovercraft at some stage like they do with other inanimate objects to make them fail? Or is that the way they always make things fail? It’s an episode that kind of raises more questions than answers really. This gives weight to Luke’s theory that the Mysterons are just doing this whole war-of-nerves thing with the Earth Men because, uh, well, they’ve got time in their hands really. It’s not like they’ve got to go to work. They can rebuild anything they’ve already done. They’re probably sitting around on a Friday afternoon going “I know, let’s make a valve weak on the hovercraft, let ’em all fight amongst themselves.” So the whole Mysterons War with Earth is kind of like they’re doing it for Mysterons and Giggles?
There are a few loose ends here, Tony Barwick. Who started the fire? How did the fire start? But there’s some fantastic Supermarionation hand waving at the end to answer these questions for us: “And the fire in our bedroom at the base?” So was it the Patchouli oil that started the fire with the candle and the curtain? Was it smoking in bed? Did someone knock over a bong? “That is something to which we shall never know the answer.” We’ll never know. So don’t even think about it. Don’t stay awake at night wondering if things are gonna catch fire. Nothing to see here. “All we can do is remain vigilant.”
But as an episode goes, it’s very different to most other ones as there’s no googly eye dead person coming back and going “Boo!”. We’re looking for a traitor. It’s a good whodunnit. I’ve got a feeling that Columbo probably could have solved the case faster than Captain Scarlet, but that still leaves the loose end of that fire. Anyway, I know I will sleep more soundly tonight in my bed knowing Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue are on the beat.
One final thought – with everything we know from this episode, and with everything we know about the metallurgy of the hovercraft, I’ll leave you with this from Machin: “Listen, Captain Scarlet would have access to all sections of Spectrum, including the plant where the hovercraft were made.” “What are you driving at?” “Just thinking.”
Maynard, Captain Aubergine, Sydney, Australia signing off. Well, I’m going to pop over to Lady Penelope’s sheep farm now. I’ll have a Drambuie and soda, thank you. A large one.
Listen to Maynard’s take on Captain Scarlet episode Operation Time
Listen to Maynard’s take on Captain Scarlet episode Model Spy
There’s a new Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons podcast from Luke at UFOcast. As a guest presenter (Captain Aubergine) on the latest podcast, I look into episode Model Spy, in which Captain Scarlet goes undercover in the world of high fashion, and probably gets killed twice. But he’s not bitter. Not at all.
Captain Aubergine here, reporting from Sydney, Australia. Lighten up Spectrum fans because this episode’s gonna be a lot of fun as we go on the French Riviera and Captain Scarlet goes into the whole world of high fashion! But it gets very dark. Like every other episode of Captain Scarlet usually does.
In this episode – Model Spy – the Mysterons plan to kill a famous fashion designer, Andre Verdain, and in doing so making the fashion community the world over and Madonna LIVID at the Mysterons. So they can kiss goodbye to getting into any decent nightclub ever again. “Sorry! No Mysterons allowed.” “But my name’s on the door.” “Go on mate, take your googly eyes and go somewhere else.”
And there’s great music in this too, especially recorded tracks for this one: “Models on a Train” and “Cocktail Time”.
And as the models are complaining, it is very tiring being a fashion model. But things get a lot worse when the Mysterons put their googly eyes over the train and oh look out, bang! And we get the scene of two models being killed in a vicious train wreck, which of course won’t upset the kids because 1967.
And the Mysterons give away the plan at the beginning of every show: “Yeah, we’re gonna kill that fashion guy.” Also, we get to hear the real names of Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue. Captain Scarlet: Paul Metcalfe and Captain Blue: Adam Svensen. Is he Swedish or Norwegian? Well, they go undercover with Destiny Angel and Symphony Angel – Gabrielle and Helga – voiced by Sylvia Anderson, herself, and Liz Morgan as Helga. But I gotta say, it’s a pretty outrageous French accent there. And Verdain himself has the most outrageous French accent. It’s like a fashion designer had the accent of the French Taunter from Monty Python.
Fashion wise, there’s a lot of velour going on here and a lot of ruffle. Velour and ruffle – big in 67.
Captain Blue is a bit dismissive of the entire fashion industry: “Verdain doesn’t appear of particular importance to anyone, least of all the Mysterons.” No one would believe that a man that runs a women’s fashion house would be a spy! I don’t know – if you’ve seen any episodes of ‘Allo ‘Allo, it’s pretty obvious. Verdain runs the Europe Area Intelligence Network.
Just looking at the way they’re dressed with their caps on in these scenes, is it possible that the Spectrum uniform caps have a clear brim from above? The faces of the Spectrum agents are better lit because when they’ve got caps on, casts a shadow.
There are reports that have come into Spectrum that Captain Black has been seen in Europe. Well, that narrows it down. He’s pretty easy to spot, he’s the unshaven guy.
And just a moment to think about Lieutenant Green. How come Lieutenant Green never gets a hat? I don’t think you ever see him with a hat on. Did the other Spectrum agents nick his hat and throw it over the telegraph pole wires like sand shoes?
Oh, now we’ve got some real fashion here. We’ve got the harlequin patterned chartreuse and burnt orange pantsuit. That pantsuit gives off that whole Hillary Clinton casual look.
As we know, Captain Scarlet’s quite famous for going funny in his water whenever he’s around Mysterons, but he’s really close to two of them there and uh, no, his water doesn’t go funny even once. But they do get invited out on the fabulous motor yacht and we are treated to “Cocktail Time”, the track that was specially recorded for this episode, and it’s the groovy sound of 2068: jazz flute.
Just a few safety engineering tips on Verdain’s 2068 luxury motor yacht: the fuel release valve. Don’t put it directly over the hot manifold of the engine. Why would you ever want to release flammable fuel near the hot manifold? And, uh, complete lack of smoke detectors in the engine compartment in 2068. Obviously a budgetary thing I’m sure. That’s a pretty major engineering fashion faux pas right there people!
Oh, and Captain Scarlet takes the boat out to sea and it goes boom. Was Captain Scarlet killed there and he came back, or did he have a lucky escape? It’s sort of hinted at in the story that he might have been a bit killed there and come back, but you know what he’s like. He’s pretty cavalier with his safety.
And then we’re treated to some super-marionation dressing gowns, which I imagine Sylvia Anderson designed. And because of the marionation, you can’t really show their knees or their full legs or anything like that. So I hope the House of Verdain doesn’t have any swimsuits in their parade, or those marionettes are in trouble.
Interesting that the Mysteron Detector sank with Verdain’s motor yacht. Maybe if someone had turned it on when everybody was getting on board, this would’ve been a bit of a shorter episode. How about Captain Scarlet? Nothing funny in his water? No? Yet, why didn’t they turn on the Mysteron detector? Are they trying to save batteries? Does it belong to someone else and they worry about wearing it out?
Hang on a minute! There’s a report that Captain Black has been seen in Monte Carlo. Well, everybody knows that the Mysterons are mad for Keno. “I was one number away from winning the meat tray …”
Oh, and check out the Dickies at the cocktail party. Multi-colored Dickies people! This is fancy. This is a rare crowd scene for super-marionation. There’s over a dozen marionettes at this party, look at ’em all crammed in there. You don’t see many scenes like this.
Now, of course, they’re worried about Verdain. They want to keep a track on him. So, at the cocktail party Captain Scarlet drugs Verdain’s drink. It’s a homing drug, a bit like an edible or LSD or something. You put that in someone’s drink and they’re pretty easy to find or spot in a crowd, let me tell you. Woohoo! There’s real hands used at multiple times during this episode, particularly with the drugging and the poking and looking around and the light switch.
Captain Black turns up outside Verdain’s hotel window. And by the way, yeah, Captain Black’s fashion, take a look at him there. Looks a bit like, uh, an original member of Dexy’s Midnight Runners with that longshoreman look.
And here’s an example of Captain Scarlet not being the brightest color in the Spectrum rainbow, by not being suspicious of the model with her thumb suspiciously hovering over the room’s light switch: looks at her, looks back at the window, looks at her … oops! the lights go out. And Andre Verdain is shot with a drugged dart, which isn’t really as unusual as you’d expect at one of these fashion parties. It’s the person who doesn’t get the dart that complains.
And this is also one of the rare cases where they capture a Mysteron: the model with the light switch. She’s there! They could capture her! You see Captain Scarlet rumbles Gabrielle knowing that she didn’t fly in because it was fog bound. Aha! She must have been googly-eyed Mysteroned.
But there’s something about the outrageous French accent when she says “You have lost Earth Man” in the French accent, just doesn’t quite seem as menacing as usual.
So we don’t know exactly why the Mysterons have kidnapped Verdain, but Captain Scarlet goes after them in a fast red car. And the Angels go off to get a helicopter. Captain Blue goes off to get the Spectrum pursuit vehicle. Who’s looking after the Mysteron agent they captured, Gabrielle? “You sit here, don’t move, or you’re in so much trouble.”
Nice bit of spycraft here as Captain Blue gets the SPV that’s hidden in a casino. Mind you, he had to play three rounds of Keno to get it out.
And Captain Black really wants to keep Verdain alive. And also what’s happened here with Captain Scarlet? Did he have a crash again? “He’s crashed.” “Good.” Did he actually just get killed then in the red car? His refractory period after dying is pretty impressive. He’s up and about in no time. Also, this is probably the most dialogue I’ve seen Captain Black have when he is talking to Helga. He has a lot to say, but we still don’t know why they want him alive and we still have no idea what their plan is.
They notify the French police and they pull the old French police roadblock trick on Captain Black and the crew. “Look, the exit’s blocked.” “Come out of ze car with your ‘ands up.” So what do they do? They throw Verdain out of the car in a way that it seems they didn’t really want to kill him, cause they could have done that while he was in the car. And then they do the old “don’t look now, we’ve just teleported ourself and the car of here”.
The Mysterons seem to disappear with the same noise as the TARDIS, giving Verdain a bit of existential angst on witnessing the car and the Mysterons just disappear. Also witnessed by the French police, which is not commented upon at all. Look, it’s a French holiday resort. The French police probably see that sort of thing all the time.
If the Mysterons can just teleport themselves out of places, why don’t they do it more often? And if they could, why didn’t they take Verdain with them? Why are they even using a car at all? And of course Verdain’s just tripping balls after seeing this. “Verdain, are you all right?” “I saw it with my own eyes! It vanished! The Saloon just vanished into thin air!” But some silver tongued hand waving from Captain Scarlet resolves everything and gets us out of this. “The Mysterons have powers we cannot hope to understand. Let’s get back to the hotel.”
So Captain Blue has a pretty okay episode. The Angels get fabulous gowns at the end of the episode, and Captain Scarlet got killed twice, probably, and oh no, he’s not bitter: “Yes, I’m all right.”
Just a few questions here for Tony Barwick, the script editor: Gabrielle the Mysteron agent. What happened to her? Did they send her downstairs to play Keno? Did she actually win that meat tray? And what were they actually going to do with Verdain? They could have killed him two or three times over. And where were they going to take him to and what were they going to do with him when they got him there? They almost captured a Mysteron agent! Did she teleport herself out? Did she give them a gown as a bribe? Oh no there’s a lot of unanswered questions in this one, but it’s a fairly fabulous episode fashion wise. And there is that cool music: “Cocktail Time”. 2068 – the sound of jazz flute.
I love Captain Scarlet. It’s dark, but it’s still fun. And if you think this is dark, take a look at Joe 90 sometime.
Captain Aubergine, Spectrum, Sydney, Australia signing off. And remember, there’s nothing suspicious about hovering your finger over a light switch at a cocktail party.
Listen to Maynard’s take on Captain Scarlet episode Operation Time
To celebrate the “Weird Al” Yankovic epic biopic release worldwide, let’s watch some Weird Al clips. From the vault in the famous Maynard International Studios in Australia, Maynard will showcase some of his favourite Weird Al material.
Tim Ferguson will also throw some easy Weird Al questions at you, and we screen Maynard’s previously unseen interview with Al during his first tour of Australia in 2003. (He didn’t do any shows during his 1990 UHF promotional visit.)
Weird Al and Maynard first met in 1990 at Flinders Street Railway Station on Al’s 30th birthday for Maynard’s Triple J breakfast show. Below is the scene shortly after Maynard rubbed Al’s birthday cake over himself.
PS He gave Al a second one as pictured!
To celebrate the release of the long awaited Mari Wilson collection on CD, Maynard presents a video livestream of more Mari Wilson video clips than you ever thought possible. There will be Mari music clips from all over the place, special guests, not so special guests, a tea towel, press clippings, dancing and a legal disclaimer.
Join Maynard, Bob Downe, Glenn Keenan (Lesley Fountain), George Hrab and Noam Chomsky the teddy for show full of fun and fabulous outfits.
Leo Sayer sits down to talk about his book and share some stories, laughs, music and a bit of dancing on the table.
Leo Sayer has been a live favourite in Australia since he first toured here in the 70s.
From Long Tall Glasses to More Than I Can Say and the disco favourite Thunder In My Heart you are in for a treat here folks.
Leo Sayer always liked touring here, so much so that he became an Australian citizen in 2009.
But before that in the 90s he sat down (and danced around) with Maynard on the release of his autobiography.
Enjoy all his best known songs, some gossip and the answer to that nagging question:
How high is wine up to “yar”?
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A new book from longtime music industry insider Jane Gazzo fills in Australian music history from a time before oversharing became endemic. Sound As Ever: A celebration of the greatest decade in Australian music (1990-1999), a book with Andrew P Street covers most things that you should know about the optimistic musical decade that was dashed against the uncaring digital rocks of the 21st century.
Maynard: With the Australian musical landscape, sadly, experiencing a slight, lack of interesting musical punters, one woman has stepped forward to toot the collective horn of the dark yet simultaneously blindingly colourful decade known as the nineties. Jane Gazzo has done that and been there. From inner city beginnings at Melbourne’s legendary 3RRR to Triple J, Triple M and BBC Radio, through to you seeing her on ABC’s Recovery on a Saturday morning and Channel V and Music Max on Foxtel, you probably know of Jane.
But have you ever shared a flat with her? Well, I haven’t either, but Sharky from The Prodigy and Courtney Love have, and all of them are better people from the experience. She’s written for Q magazine, but more importantly, Dolly magazine. Jane has published a book on John Farnham, but a new epic nineties book Sound As Ever – a celebration of the greatest decade in Australian music, 1990 to 1999, please make welcome my favourite Latrobe University graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in cinema that strangely has not yet won an Academy Award. Talk about robbed! Welcome Jane Gazzo!
Jane Gazzo: Thanks Maynard, you are my favourite purple-suited presenter slash broadcaster.
M: I think you’ll find it’s aubergine. It’s great to be chatting to you once again. We bumped into each other at the Triple J 40th catchup party. That was the last time I think I saw you.
J: Oh, that was sooo long ago Maynard.
M: There was no one documenting that. There was no person from ABC Radio. There was no person from ABC TV. You had staff from 40 years of Triple J all in the one room.
J: It was a crime.
M: Some of those people are no longer with us. I’m glad that you are making your moment with the nineties here. Look, I was talking to a couple of people about this, Glenn A Baker, he reckons the seventies were the greatest decade in Australian music. I mean, you’re ignoring the work of Mother Goose. Even though they are from New Zealand. Richard Wilkins told me that the greatest decade in Australian music was the eighties and you can’t really deny the work of Joe Dolce. He did replace the Pope when he got shot that time, which is even better than an ARIA award in my book, you are ignoring a lot there for the nineties. So you gotta make your case. What’s so great about the nineties, Miss Pineapple-and-Vodka-Drinker?
J: It is a bold statement, I grant you that and yes, look, the eighties were fabulous but for me the nineties was the last decade of innocence. And by that, I mean, we didn’t have camera phones, we didn’t have mobile phones. Record companies had so much money to spend on bands and they pretty much did spend money on bands and the Australian music scene was in a really healthy state. But as the year 2000 progressed, that innocence seemed to dissipate.
M: Do you think the record companies spent their money wisely?
J: There was some flippant signings. I mean, The Sharp, let’s be honest.
M: Look, I will not hear a word against the black skivvy wearing legends from Melbourne.
J: Scratch My Back, baby.
M: Don’t deny Train of Thought.
J: No one remembers Train of Thought Maynard. I think it was an interesting time because you would go to a gig in the nineties and you would notice the A&R men – and they all were men – by the bar, basically seeing who had the fattest cheque book in their pocket.
M: There was something in their pocket, that’s for sure.
J: I’m just saying it was healthy. There was a lot of community, there was a lot of camaraderie.
M: You, you did a lot of stuff on recovery of course. So a lot of people were watching you bleary eyed on a Saturday morning and you would’ve been exposed to so many new bands of all varying talent.
You would get a band on (Recovery) and you would never see them or hear from them ever again.
Jane Gazzo
J: Varying talent. Sometimes you would get a band on and you would never see them or hear from them ever again. A band that I remember appearing on recovery was a band called Cool for August. Now they weren’t Australian, they were American, but obviously the record company here were putting in thousands and thousands of dollars to launch them here. They never did anything.
M: What were they called?
J: Cool for August and I only remember that because they had eyeballs on the Recovery set. We used to recreate a lot of the CD single covers. We never heard from them again. Then there was things like Sin Dog Jellyroll out of Adelaide, the most stupidest band name ever. Sin Dog Jellyroll. Where are they now? I should have probably investigated it.
M: One of the things you have got in the book is the Where Are They Now? section, even bands I’d never heard of.
J: You get a mention in the book Maynard, because it was you that introduced me to the artistic delights of Tlot Tlot.
M: Tlot Tlot and Rob Clarkson, I loved championing music on Triple J that wasn’t even on their playlist at the time and Tlot Tlot were a lot of fun. Always good, always up for a joke. My partial nineties list of bands goes a bit like this: Itch-E and Scratch-E, Mr Floppy, The Mavis’s, TISM, Oxo Cubans, Tlot Tlot, Rob Clarkson, Area 7, The Porkers, Caligula, Ratcat, Frente, The Killjoys, The Sharp, Collette, Bjorn Again, Falling Joys, Floyd Vincent, Frank Bennett. There you go.
J: Where’s Things of Stone and Wood in that list?
M: Happy Birthday, Helen… You’ve been probably torturing yourself with nineties music in your head while you’ve been writing this book. Is there one that got stuck in your ear? And you thought “not this again”.
J: It was more of how did I forget this song? I actually fell in love with the Canberra band Sidewinder all over again and their track Titanic Days. I forgot how brilliant it was.
M: One thing you mentioned fairly early on in the book is that the nineties had a real feeling of optimism, that just isn’t happening anymore.
J: I’m so glad you mentioned the optimism Maynard because everywhere there was optimism, certainly after we came out of the recession that we “had to have”. Paul Keating was our new Prime Minister. There was a sense, as I mentioned that the record companies had money and if you formed a band, you could pretty much live off the takings of being a musician. The music scene was so vibrant and so healthy that anything was possible. And a lot of those bands that I interviewed for the book really talk about that optimism and that sense of we can do anything we can get as big as we can. Which is why bands like TISM became so big, bands like Spiderbait and You Am I. There was this optimism.
M: Well, that’s certainly gone now.
J: Yeah, I think it’s wavered somewhat.
M: You’ve got the double whammy of venues disappearing and people not wanting to go out.
J: It was the bloody pokies, wasn’t it? That was introduced in the late nineties that saw really great venues just forfeit the stage for pokies because they realised that they could make more money from them. … I’d say every 20 years there’s a revolution. I’m hoping that with the recent global pandemic, there’ll be a new revolution and we’ll find those protest songs and those bands will start coming out of little tiny warehouses again, and the scene will reinvent itself.
M: I really hope that’s the case, that’s the kind of thing I’d like to see. I just wonder whether a lot of the experts and people with experience have left the industry.
J: They all got out of it during the pandemic because they weren’t making any money and they realised they couldn’t make any money. So they had to change careers had to go into different fields and now there is a real, genuine skill shortage. What are we gonna do about it Maynard?
M: I think if one band can do anything about it, it’s TISM – This Is Serious Mum – and they kick off your book in a pretty major way with a complaint letter from Bruce Ruxton from the RSL Association of Australia to Shock Records complaining about their record.
J: It was so brilliantly done. TISM released a single called Australia, the Lucky C*nt, and wrote that word on their CD single.
M: But also to boot, they had a knock off of a Ken Done koala shooting up heroin on the front cover. So you had copyright infringement as well as offence, which is always a good double banger.
J: But you know, what is so hilarious? I talk about this in the book, that Ken Done didn’t take offence to the fact that TISM copied his koala and his koala had a syringe hanging out of his mouth, he took offence to the fact that they copied his sun, suddenly he was copyrighting the sun. … So Ken Done owned the sun apparently in the nineties.
M: Oh, I guess that’s on most of his tea towels.
J: Yes, Bruce Ruxton. They actually sent a copy of the single to Bruce Ruxton in the hope that he would get his knickers in a knot and low and behold, he walked right into it. He received the CD single with the four letter word on it and wrote a letter which said it should be banned and they used that to get more publicity for themselves.
J: Can we just pray silence please for the sad news of the first lady of music television in Australia, Basia Bonkowski or Rendall as she was known, of course, the host of the wonderful SBS show, a Rock Around the World.
M: Was she the first?
J: Yeah, I think she was the first and Suzanne Dowling was the second. In the media I think they’ve conveniently forgotten Suzanne Dowling who did Rock Arena. That was absolutely equally as brilliant.
M: As far as I know, you’re the only person in nineties media history, who has put me in the book, why?
J: Because you were so omnipresent in the nineties. I used to listen to your show. You were appointment listening, and that’s when radio was really important. I mean, Triple J had literally just gone national when you started and you were such a breath of fresh air on the radio. Still are, I don’t know how your mind works. You just presented really great radio, and it wasn’t just the fact that you brought really cool bands on the radio. I mean, you were the first one to play and break in this country, Irish band from Cork, Sultans of Ping FC. But you used to do this amazing segment with a wonderful woman, American woman “You’ve got the wrong Sinatra”.
M: Millie Sinatra, a lovely lady, and she would solve people’s problems every week on the show.
J: Well, this is the thing, who’s doing that now on Triple J? I don’t hear any of that.
M: Sultans of Ping FC, yeah. Where’s Me Jumper? The film clip just had a jumper flying in the air. I mean, that’s the kinda thing you want. I remember one day the drummer turned up while I was doing Sunday Afternoon Fever, and I couldn’t believe it.
J: Well, it was because of him being on a, just a holiday. And I think he was staying at Bondi or Bronte or somewhere like that. He’d heard you playing Sultans of Ping so he rang up and he said “Hey, I’m Morty McCarthy, the drummer of Sultans of Ping.” Now I heard that and I was on Triple R at the time. So I remember ringing you and saying, “Can you give me Morty McCarthy’s details? I wanna interview him for Triple R.” And I have to actually thank you Maynard, because you may not know this, but Morty is now a very, very dear friend of mine. He lives in Sweden now and works for Radiohead doing merchandise.
M: Classic example of the unknown consequences of doing something nice.
J: See Maynard, you’ve had an effect on my life without you even knowing!
M: Look, we’ve gotta get back to the fact that Mr Floppy gets far too brief a mention. The album of the nineties was The Incredible Lightness of Being a Dickhead and Bruce Ruxton was on that album.
J: Oh my God. As was Peter Russell Clark, as was James Reyne, they just don’t make them like that anymore. I could have done a whole book on Mr Floppy and TISM alone.
M: I also learned a lot about Ratcat as well, having supported the guys more recently, I didn’t know that they had to spend so much of their own money at the behest of the record company to go overseas and do stuff that was a really bad move for them.
J: Yeah, in the middle of mass teen Ratcat hysteria they were told to go to London, to the UK, which makes absolutely no sense. And of course they never truly recovered once they got back because the kids had moved on, they couldn’t reclaim that fan base. Andrew P Street spoke at length to Amr Zaid, who was one of the original members of Ratcat, for the book and Amr had never told his story before. Amr had never talked about his time in Ratcat ever. He was really chuffed to be able to tell his story. I think he’s very proud of what they achieved in that short time.
M: In December, in a packed Enmore Theatre there, people still love them.
J: It’s fair to say it’s probably just Simon Day, these days. I think Amr and Simon haven’t spoken for years and years and years.
M: Being the music industry, and you said that those two haven’t spoken for a while, did you have to be careful who you spoke to and when you did, what you said? If you were talking to someone in a band and you knew that you shouldn’t mention What’s-his-name or The Interview?
J: Oh, put it this way, when I was doing the Where are they now? I had to be very careful with certain members who didn’t like other members, or who were really still nursing a lot of heartbreak from the breakup of their bands. And I had to be really careful with how I wrote about that. I just had to be really careful that someone wasn’t gonna email me and go “why did you mention that?” But I also wanted to get across the story of the person that was broken hearted.
M: Let’s talk about someone that was done wrong by the industry and that’s Tania Lacy.
J: Mmmmm. Again, another woman who has never told her story.
M: I remember being on the phone to her and Mark, because I was asked to host the show for a while. The first thing I did was ring them and they said, no, no, do it. And I didn’t do it because I supported what they were doing. And as she said, her booting off from Countdown Revolution was something her career never has recovered from.
J: It’s true. She had to take writing jobs to support herself, but she was told never to darken the door of the ABC ever again. She was fired by fax. She wasn’t even allowed to go and pick her things up. And the ABC said that the duo were fired for protesting about bands miming on the show, which was so far from the truth. As she puts it, she was protesting the fact – both her and Mark were protesting the fact – that the ABC were taking contra deals from record companies. Reporters were being flown overseas to interview bands, free trips, free prizes, everything that the ABC Charter states not to do, they were doing.
M: Shortly afterwards, the ABC really cracked down on that kind of thing.
J: As they should have. Tania Lacy was in her early twenties at the time and was being yelled at by these suits in middle management. What do you do? Where do you go? She was so talented. Cruelly wasn’t allowed to ever appear on air ever again. So she fled to, I think it was Sweden, where her husband was from. She’s back now.
M: She’s in Queensland now.
J: There’s a great article in Rolling Stone which I wrote, again based on the fact that herself and Caroline from Dead Star talked about just what they dealt with in the nineties. And so I put it into an article in this month’s Rolling Stone with The Wiggles on the front cover. To really tell their stories.
M: Another show that fell through the cracks was the one that was just on before Recovery, and that was The Factory, Tania was a powerhouse on that show.
J: I love the characters she used to take off. There was a Nana Mouskouri character. That’s where Tiziana Bouboulini was born of course. And she used to interview artists with the most hilarious of personas.
M: And they just chucked the whole thing away.
J: Yeah, very strange times. And it’s interesting because Countdown Revolution was a precursor to what Recovery would become where anarchy was encouraged. But as soon as they asked Mark and Tania to be as anarchic as possible, they got shut down.
M: Anyone who’s been to a Mark Little standup comedy gig would’ve told you what you’d be getting if you asked for him. At the Adelaide Festival, I think one of the rooms was sponsored by the submarine company and he smashed up the sign one night.
You nailed your nineties there with a list of stuff – in the nineties: Taragos, that was mainly the Toyota way of getting around with bands because the people carriers hadn’t expanded as much as they are.
J: When I went to London and people started talking about people carriers, I did not have any idea what they were talking about because I’d always called it a Tarago. I’d only ever known it as a Tarago.
M: The lists people have made of things that were really big, it’s interesting. Phones just don’t appear on the list. Cameras don’t appear on the list. The vodka and pineapple juice, because there were some wacky connections there. And I think even the vodka and energy drink thing was going on then, at the tail end of the nineties as well.
J: See it was Illusion Shakers for me, which I think were mentioned.
M: Were they blue?
J: They were Midori with lemonade and something else. And they were really big in the clubs in the nineties.
M: But I remember it was part of Sunday Afternoon Fever who had the most expensive Subzero, that lemonade.
J: I loved Subzeros, loved them.
M: And at clubs, they were really expensive. And I remember we found, oh, there was one going for as much as $7 at one time.
And also, at this time, I like mentioning that the import record thing was big. Because you couldn’t just click and download stuff from anywhere around the world. You had to go to a shop like Red Eye or many of the great record shops in Melbourne. If you wanted a CD, it could be as much as $45 in 1993 dollars
J: Weren’t record shops such hubs of community? You could go to a record shop and if the guy behind the counter knew you, he would recommend something that he’d know that you’d like, you’d check out all the musos looking at the musos wanted boards. You could find out about gig that were happening. You could get your import stuff. You’d get your street press while you were there. That’s really lacking in today’s world.
M: Yes, Saturday morning at a place like Central Station, you would have all the DJs turning up and all the important ones like Peewee Ferris and people like that would have their records put aside.
J: There is a fantastic map of old Sydney record stores in the book and some are still hanging on for dear life like Red Eye. We all remember our record shops really fondly.
M: Brunswick Street was the go in Melbourne.
J: Polyester was there, there was Sister Ray for a while. Of course, in the city you had Au GoGo and Missing Link records.
M: Missing Link. I remember getting my copy of 99 by Barbara Feldon there. They also released, I think, Kinky Boots, by the Avengers, which I used to play on the radio as well. And whenever a Kylie record was released in the UK about a month or two ahead of us, I’d go and get the import copy and I’d play it first. I liked doing that.
I ended up setting fire to my own bum. That’s what happens when you’re a trailblazer…
Maynard
J: You were a trailblazer!
M: I ended up setting fire to my own bum. That’s what happens when you set fire to your trail and you blaze it!
J: You opened the doors for the likes of me, Maynard, you opened up the doors for us.
M: You did the request show on Triple J of an evening.
J: After Michael Tunn! Remember Michael Tunn? Tunny had left by the time I took over his shift, I think he got burnt out because remember he was doing the Afternoon Show on ABC TV.
M: He was hosting Big Square Eye as well. He was 16 when he first arrived at Triple J.
J: And he was great! I took over from the Request Best and I changed it to Super Request.
M: I started doing the request show on a Saturday night before Tunny got it and it was a really weird thing because there had been no request show on Triple J before they got me to do it for a couple of months before Tunny took over. And the weird thing was you either got two sorts of songs. People would want something that was ultra commercial, or they’d want something that was really obscure. It’s like the audience didn’t know what to do with a request show on Triple J at first.
Michael Tunn had a really interesting way of broadcasting. He would have an FM radio, just a little transistor radio in the studio, and whenever he went to a song, he would listen to all the other major music stations in Sydney, find out what they were playing and try and better the song that they had on.
J: That’s amazing.
M: It means you’re being reactionary. You’re not leading your reacting, but it’s a way to do it. … And what was the weirdest experience you had doing a request show? The Triple J request show when I was doing it, when Tunny was doing it, when anyone does it is not a normal request show.
J: I’m gonna let you in on a secret Maynard: some nights on Super Request when I was hosting, there were no calls. Which is hard to believe because we were nationwide, but some nights we just didn’t have any talent or, you know, they’d ring up and they’d want a song that we couldn’t play or didn’t want to play. Or it was too daggy, too bad, whatever. I can’t believe I’m telling you this … I had this friend that was really good at putting on voices and accents. When we needed some talent on the air, especially Friday nights, I think Friday nights we struggled because everyone was getting ready to go out and I had this friend, Glen, who would put voices and accents on. Well, I, I loved that Radio Birdman song Aloha Steve and Danno. And I had read in the paper that day, that the guy who actually played Steve, the actor on the actual Hawaii Five O show had passed away.
M: Jack Lord! Our Lord and Saviour, Jack Lord.
J: So it was 1998 and he’d died and so I went, oh well, that’s a great segue into Aloha Steve and Danno. Hey, homage to Jack Lord and Hawaii Five O by Radio Birdman. Why not? Great. I rang Glen and I said, “Mate, can you come on and just mention you, you’re a huge Hawaii Five O fan”. I’d always word him up. Uh, Jack Lord’s passed away. Can I play Radio Birdman? He said “Yep not a problem Jane”. He was used to it, coming on and requesting songs. So he got on air, we’re live on air and Glen put on a Chinese accent.
M: Oh no!
J: It’s awfully racist as well, but he just thought he’d take the piss and put on a Chinese accent live on air. Maynard, I lost it, I start laughing, I can’t hold it together because I know it’s my mate putting on a Chinese accent. My God, I had tears coming down my face. I got him on and I got him off, but Jesus, I was pissing myself, no word of a lie. The next day, someone from the Herald Sun was obviously listening and put in the entertainment section: “Jane Gazzo was so disrespectful to a listener who was talking about the death of Jack Lord, not cool, Jane”. My friend was putting on a friggin’ Chinese accent and someone took me to task and wrote about it, that I was the most disrespectful person in the world, ever!
M: By the way every commercial station does that for sure. Because the problem commercial stations have is not so much people ringing up, but ringing up with the right songs that are on the playlist.
J: Oh my God. I know. Well, you know, you and I have both worked in commercial radio when I worked at, um, a commercial radio that will remain nameless, but is still around today, they did this whole campaign: We’re gonna play the songs you wanna hear! So make sure you get in and, and fill in this thing online and tell us all the songs you wanna hear!
And, of course I got excited as a DJ, I went, oh great, we’re expanding our playlist from the 12 Cold Chisel songs and Guns and Roses songs that we constantly play to maybe 20 songs. And I remember my boss coming into the studio while I was on air, which was a crime in itself, but he goes “Have you got something lined up?” and I said, “Yeah, yeah, I’m gonna play Run to the Hills cause everyone loves Run to the Hills and there’s so many requests for it. “No, no, no, no, no, don’t play that, play Garbage.” “But there’s not one request from any male between the ages of 40 to 65 who was requested Garbage.” He’s saying “No, but just ring up someone and get them to ask for it, okay.” And I’m like, “What about Run to the Hills? Cause that’s what people wanna hear?”
M: I know this Chinese guy who really likes Garbage!
J: Such a lie to the audience!
M: The amount of lies in the book that I’ve spotted has been almost zero. The quiz at the end is a good one as well. You’re someone who’s written a few trivia quizzes in your time, Jane Gazzo.
J: Did you get them all right?
M: I actually didn’t do very well in them. Why don’t you throw one out to the listener right now?
J: Who was the host of Creatures of the Spotlight on Triple J on a Monday night? There’s one for you.
M: Peter Castaldi.
J: Correct. And who was his co-host?
M: I’d forgotten there was a co-host.
J: Yeah! Starts with L … Lawrie Zion, you don’t remember Lawrie Zion?
M: Lawrie Zion!
J: Creature of the Spotlight was Pete Castaldi and then Lawrie Zion. I’m sure they worked in tandem together.
M: Now that’s a good question for those nineties Triple J listeners. And I’d like to finish with you making a request on this show and don’t do your Chinese voice again! I’m on to you, Jane. Well, now the radio station would have to hand in its licence. And they’d just dig a large hole there, build a statue of you, then pull the statue down and dig another hole and put the statue in it.
J: It wasn’t me, it was my mate Glen. A request, all right, I’m gonna go Ratcat, That Ain’t Bad because “I love you” – that was the catch cry of the early nineties, and it really for me kickstarted the entire Australian music scene, such a great, great song to go out with.
M: Where can people get the book Sound As Ever: A Celebration of the Greatest Decade in Australian Music (1990-1999)?
J: In all good boutique bookshops, as well as the major chain bookshops, and you can get it online via Melbourne books.
M: I recommend people go along to your website: janegazzo.com and have a good read of what you’ve done, and all little incidents that have gone on. I do like the word that you shared a place with, and you worked for, Courtney Love ‘briefly’.
J: Briefly.
M: So was it the whole day?
J: It was 12 days all up.
M: Would the word ‘mercurial’ be good to use?
J: Batshit crazy is probably better.
M: This book is worth reading, worth having, it’ll settle arguments. Cause that’s one thing, you’ll be at home, you’ll be watching stuff, one person will look at the Wiki, other people will look at YouTube, they won’t have the same answer, they’ll be pushing and shoving, and everyone will be drinking the pineapple and vodka juice, and you can solve the answer by just having this book. Oh, hang on a minute, you supported Hugh Jackman as a DJ?
J: I was his support act.
M: What do you play when you’re supporting Hugh Jackman?
J: Playing stuff from Motown and sixties Soul and eighties stuff. I was having a ball, such a highlight in my life being the support act for Hugh Jackman and on the eighth show when I got off stage for the last time I did a cartwheel down the runway, just cartwheeled all the way back.
M: What song would you finish with?
J: I think I finished with You Can’t Hurry Love by the Supremes.
M: Have you thought of what song we should play for you?
J: Ratcat, That Ain’t Bad.
M: You don’t want to change your answer? You don’t want to phone a friend? Particularly a friend who puts on a fake Chinese accent. I’m not having that guy on the show again!
Jane Gazzo, thank you very much. She’s requested it twice so we have to play it now on the Maynard Request Fest here. Sound As Ever: A celebration of the greatest decade in Australian music (1990-1999) it’s great and so is Jane!
Where to get Sound as Ever: A celebration of the greatest decade in Australian Music (1990-1999)
Sunday Afternoon Fever show 1993 featuring my visit to Mrs Fred Sinatra in Las Vegas.
There’s a new Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons podcast from Luke at UFOcast. As a guest presenter (Captain Aubergine) on the latest podcast, I look into episode Operation Time, in which Captain Scarlet looks like he’s been to an all weekender Rave by the end of it.
It’s Captain Aubergine, Maynard here!
First of all, there’s always that organ stab right at the beginning. When we first see that dirty back alley that Captain Scarlet hangs out in, we hear the mighty organ flourish at the beginning.
It does herald the fact that a great drama is afoot in this episode. Of course, we’ve got Dr Fawn again, wonderfully played by the Australian Charles “Bud” Tingwell, who was born in the Sydney seaside suburb of Coogee, and flew during the Second World War in the Mediterranean theatre, doing reconnaissance flights in Spitfires, Hurricanes and Mosquitoes.
And because the Mysterons just love giving the game away, they inform everybody that they’re going to KILL TIME, which confounds everybody. They even get the Spectrum computer onto it. They just put in ‘time’ as the search word. It’s a bit like putting in ‘water’. “Oh, we’ve got a lot of results for that.” In fact, they got 14 micro files of it. That much! Wonder if you can fit that on a USB?
So the Mysterons are going to kill time. Hmmm… Could mean a lot of things. They could play some experimental jazz. Read that copy of “The Wasteland” that’s been lying around the house. Or really get stuck in and fix that kitchen drawer that doesn’t close properly.
Although I guess the Mysterons could just destroy the drawer and have it rebuild itself, but that drawer probably wouldn’t close properly either, being an exact copy of an object that was broken in the first place.
The opening shot is a very, very surreal camera moving across the ceiling of an operating theatre. And there are some very scary medical looking instruments, some kids might not enjoy this.
That’s where we’re introduced to the Cerebral Pulsator. In this opening surgery scene there’s a rare shot of obvious Supermarionation strings on Dr Magnus. I’m just having a quick look at Captain Black there too. He could really use a good night’s sleep.
So they’ve got this whole thing about time. What does that mean? Is it something to do with Dave Brubeck? Is it Prince’s backing band? Is it the song from “Dirty Dancing”? They just don’t know.
And in this is a great closeup on Captain Blue. What an impeccably designed outfit by Sylvia Anderson. Really good attention to detail.
Spectrum assigns their best agents to strategic locations. Captain Blue is going to New York, Captain Grey is going to Rio de Janeiro (“Woo hoo!”). Captain Ochre is going to Moscow and Captain Scarlet assigned to London. I guess Captain Razzmatazz got sent to Weston-super-Mare. You never know, the Mysterons might go there in their downtime.
Then we see Dr Magnus leaving the hospital. He’s wearing the neurosurgeon casual look there with a strong accent on the cravat. He goes to see the General. Hit pause and have a good look at that consent form that the General signs. That is an actual consent form by look of it.
The operation looks like stereotactic surgery of the thalamus. I didn’t have the three days necessary to go to neurosurgeon school, but I’ve read it up on it and it is an operation that you do with the patient being awake under a local anaesthetic, it usually takes between two and three hours and is not often performed now because ultrasound can do the work of actually going in there and removing parts of the thalamus itself.
So this is based in a bit of reality. Someone in the Gerry Anderson studios knew their neurosurgery.
Captain Black in the orange turtleneck follows Dr Magnus after he’s had the consent form signed. What happens next I’m sure many Americans have experienced. They’re loitering at the red light. The person behind them just wants them to move because they are in a hurry and so gets out a gun and takes take a shot at them.
This whole chase scene shows Supermarionation at its best. Those trees look great. And the close ups of the two drivers, Captain Black and Dr Magnus, really build the suspense. Ah, if only the Doctor had some form of communication that was mobile in his car!
Captain Black shoots out his tire and he has a big crash. Oooh, they’ve Mysteron-ed him! Captain Black comes up behind the Mysteron-ed doctor and gives him his order to KILL TIME. Spectrum are really up against it here. We’ve got an ethereal enemy. Basically, they just put their googly eyes on something and they can make a copy of it if it’s just died, which is why there’s a grisly murder in every episode for the children.
We cut to Cloudbase where Colonel White’s having a contemplative moment looking out of the window only to be interrupted by Captain Magenta, who maybe has had a bit too much coffee. “It came to me in a flash!” There’s a WTF moment from Colonel White. You don’t get that every day.
Captain Magenta probably has been into the Mysteron champagne there by the sound of it, but he’s right. ‘Tiempo’ is Spanish for time and now Spectrum know what the jig is and they’re onto it. So Captain Magenta is the hero of the show.
Spectrum move the operation to Cloudbase. Dr Magnus starts behaving in a way you don’t want your neurosurgeon to behave before or during an operation. He turns into Dr Shirty: “Let’s get on with it.” And Dr Sweating Bullets: “Set the voltage for 1.7.” “But Doctor that’s far too high!”
And he gets his hand in front of the x-ray machine when they’re taking one of the photos of the patient, then he wants to set the Cerebral Pulsator to the ‘Let it Rip’ setting, which doesn’t make anyone suspicious whatsoever. “You sure you should do that?” “No, no, no, no. I’m setting it to 127 million, that’s just fine!”
“I’ll thank you Doctor to remember I’m performing this operation.” It’s not like I’m working for the enemy or anything. But then the radiographer sees that bare bones photo of the x-ray of Dr Magnus’ hand has turned into a full photo of his hand skin and all. Well, that’s just not right!
Dr Magnus turns up the Cerebral Pulsator to the Ozzy Osborne frequency. Meanwhile, the radiographer tries to get past Captain Magenta, whose gun by the way matches his outfit. Does Captain Scarlet’s gun match his outfit?
Because Captain Magenta has got a chip on his shoulder to start with: “Oh, Captain Magenta, right? Not Captain Red, not exciting, like Captain Scarlet. Captain Magenta!” Everyone probably makes fun of him, except Captain Ochre who probably wouldn’t make fun of him. Captain Razzmatazz certainly wouldn’t. So Captain Magenta has a lot to prove in this scene by keeping the one guy who could save the day out. Because he hasn’t got a colour. He’s just a radiographer.
Meanwhile, Dr Magnus just keeps turning up the beats per minute, like a rave from the late nineties. So has the General been killed? The operation sheets are pulled back to reveal … Captain Scarlet! Who has had his brain fried. Again.
Sometimes Colonel White gets a bit cavalier with the whole Captain Scarlet thing, doesn’t he? He could have stopped this operation before Captain Scarlet’s brain was fried, it was pretty obvious, but no, no, we just let him fry Captain Scarlet’s brain, because with his retro metabolism everything will be fine again. He won’t mind.
So Dr Magnus being the victim of a Spectrum suck-in with Captain Scarlet then bolts out of the operating theater, knocking Captain Magenta out of the way, probably making him the butt of a whole stack of other jokes. “Oh right. You stopped the radiographer, but you couldn’t stop a Mysteron. Who do you think you are? Captain Red?”
Captain Blue gets the drop on Dr Magnus in the Generator Room. Although Captain Grey did also offer to come along with Captain Blue to the Generator Room and there’d be two of them, he went “No it’s best I go alone.” Why not have two people there? Two people with guns? Although maybe it’s a good thing for Captain Grey because look what happened to the last person who went on a mission with Captain Blue. Not naming any names there.
Captain Blue throws a ladder against Dr Magnus and he falls against the high voltage wires and we have a very grisly electrocution there. The kids will love that.
At the debrief at the end, Captain Scarlet’s sitting there. Seemingly fine, although he doesn’t have any dialogue in this scene. I wonder after what’s gone on with his brain, he’s having the Homer Simpson thing, where there’s a monkey banging cymbals together in his head. And that’s all he can hear.
We’ve learned very important information from this about the Mysterons: they’re impervious to x-rays, and high voltage currents will kill them just as much as it will a human. Important information for the episodes to come.
A super scary episode, particularly for those people that aren’t good with hospitals.
The script was by Richard Conway and Steven J Mattick – they had done earlier work on the show, but I think this was their first script that was filmed. It took about two weeks to shoot, but that was about how fast the show got made. Ken Turner’s direction is great.
With those spooky operation shots of the ceiling, I’m not sure I would’ve signed that consent form.
Captain Aubergine, Maynard, Sydney Spectrum signing off!
Stereotactic thalamotomy … I’ll have two of those thank you.
Maynard International Studios presents his Olivia Newton-John 1999 interview, Alan Carr the producer of Grease, and many of Olivia’s music clips plus extra surprises. Expect guests popping in to show their Olivia love.
Olivia Newton-John weekend kicked off with Tell Me About It, Stud!, the video livestream quiz show where you got to show off your quirky Olivia Newton-John knowledge against everyone else watching.
With Maynard as host and Richard Saunders as the scorekeeping empath with guests Tim Ferguson, George Hrab, Brigitte Handley and our choreography correspondent Lesley Fountain (Glenn Keenan) the only thing we can say was that the real winner on the night was Olivia herself.
