EXCLUSIVE:
Six years after he joined ABC as a stage hand within the Seventies, after serving in Vietnam, Ted Emery was tasked with Directing and Producing Countdown.
“It was my first ever tv present. I shit myself! I had diahorrea for every week!” he laughs.
It was 1977 and the ABC present had been on air since November eighth 1974, initially on Friday nights, earlier than it quickly moved to Sundays and have become vacation spot viewing for teenagers throughout Australia.
It was a golden period: color tv, King of Pop awards, Spunky journal, Brashs music shops, 3XY & 2SM, Chokito rolls, Huge M, Polly Waffles and Sunny Boys.
ABC’s music present, led by Go-Set journalist Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum as its Expertise Co-ordinator had made stars of Australian and worldwide music acts. Teenagers throughout Australia would religiously tune in at 6pm Sundays to search out out what singles to purchase the subsequent day in document shops.
Emery had labored his manner from an ABC stagehand in Ripponlea studios, Elsternwick, to flooring managing and, unexpectedly, to the Director’s chair.
“Due to the way in which the ABC labored, they didn’t care whether or not it was Divine Service or Market to Market or Mild Leisure, you frolicked in all places – which wasn’t a foul concept,” he tells TV Tonight.
“By the point I escaped from the Surroundings Bay, I might begin working in separate areas like Props and all that form of stuff. I used to be fortunate sufficient as a result of I’d been within the Vietnam Struggle and within the companies, I used to be a reasonably self-disciplined, self motivated particular person. I had brief hair and I didn’t take medication, in order that acquired me within the door virtually instantly on the ABC as a result of I used to be the one one who had brief hair and didn’t take medication.”
“I needed to go to Mild Leisure as a result of I fancied myself as having the ability to inform a joke.
“By the way in which, Ted subsequent week, you’re producing and directing the present.”
“Out of the blue, the boss referred to as me within the workplace after a couple of 12 months as flooring supervisor, and stated, ‘By the way in which, Ted subsequent week, you’re producing and directing the present.’ Now, I had no coaching. I knew easy methods to tie knots, drive boats, carry cans of baked beans, say ‘Sir’ to officers. That was my formal coaching within the Navy. I didn’t know an important deal about movie and tv.
“However I’d learnt a bit alongside the way in which due to that great old school ABC system of placing you right here, placing you there, placing you in all places, and I soaked it up like a sponge.”
If it was a baptism of fireplace he would rise to the event remaining within the function for over 2 years. Countdown was a beast of a present to drag collectively, particularly on the public broadcaster. If it was tough across the edges, as Molly Meldrum absolutely was, that was a part of its Aussie attraction.
“You needed to get Molly to get his act collectively, for starters, and you then needed to get the present to get its act collectively. However I believe I went within the chair till ’79. My first band was Molly’s band referred to as The Ferretts. That they had an important tune, I actually cherished it, referred to as Identical to the Stars. That was my first manufacturing quantity on Countdown,” Emery recollects.
“We at all times tried for 3 Dwell acts. We cherished making an attempt to do 5, as a result of it was chaotic…. We have been making it after which bunging it on air the next evening. So the usual apply was to try to get three acts, and try to get a bunch out of these three acts.
“We’d have a combat. He’d depart in tears”
“We had two days to get it collectively as a result of Ian didn’t flip up til Thursday. We had lunch from Monday til Wednesday, sobered up most of Thursday morning. Ian would are available. We’d have a combat. He’d depart in tears, come again Friday. I’d have modified the present utterly. We’d have one other combat, after which the boss would settle it, and we put a present collectively. How a lot enjoyable was that? Fortunate I didn’t know what I used to be doing!”
Amongst the little-known details, it was crew members who noticed legendary clips, and in lots of circumstances helped them on their method to chart success.
“I used to be one of many first folks to see Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. I noticed, of all issues, Peter Allen’s I Go to Rio. I used to be the man simply compiling the clips in Videotape. Molly hadn’t even seen it and I believed it was a lot enjoyable. Nobody had heard of Peter Allen within the age group we have been going to,” he insists.
“And the identical factor with ABBA. The one that discovered ABBA was doing the identical job as I used to be. He discovered it on a pile of movie clips that got here in, and took to Ian…. loads of tales occurred like that as a result of we had a lot product to play with.”
Such was the facility of Countdown document firms pushed to be chosen to look, together with as a launch pad for model new acts.
“They have been queuing up for these folks to be on the present”
“I used to be fortunate sufficient throughout that interval the place they have been pleading with us to placed on Kate Bush, Chilly Chisel, Angels, Dragon. They have been queuing up for these folks to be on the present as a result of they needed to tie their massive press launch in with the their first look on Countdown.
“The opposite a part of that, after all, was the radio stations wouldn’t program till the present had been on Sunday evening. That’s how necessary it was.”
Being the Seventies and music trade, there have been even very inventive methods some tried with ABC employees.
“We have been a public service organisation, so in the event that they supplied you prostitutes and cocaine and all that form of stuff, you didn’t have time for any of it right here,” Emery laughs.
In spite of everything, the Countdown workplace was simply two doorways up from Elsternwick’s Each day Planet brothel the place they may generally gaze down upon out of doors actions.
“In the back of the Each day Planet, that they had a spa tub rigged up. They’d have some high-end businessmen there in darkish glasses and fats cigar, fats abdomen and small the whole lot else, mendacity round on this spa surrounded by these beautiful ladies. With our toasted sandwiches we’d lean on the sting of the balcony and wave to the women. …we had a hilarious time.”
But there are different reminiscences that linger for Emery for all of the flawed causes, together with a shoot he had deliberate for UK vocalist Robert Palmer for his model new single.
“I’m not acting on you present except you do away with them”
“I acquired all of the Countdown dancers in purple lipstick, slicked-back hair and faux guitars and stood them in a bunch, behind him. I acquired my choreographer to do that rhythmic caterpillar routine behind him with their very straight faces, all packed up collectively in a line. He got here in for rehearsals and the women began up, and he stated, ‘I’m not acting on you present except you do away with them,’ humiliatingly in entrance of my total crew,” Emery explains.
“So I needed to pull them off, and we did some shitty factor with dry ice and some lights. Anyhow, lo and behold, the clip that got here out subsequent from Robert Palmer had these ladies within the background. He went and acquired his personal and copied the concept!”
Palmer’s Hooked on Love and Merely Irresistible would each go on to turn into ’80s classics.
“I don’t assume I’ll ever forgive that man for that.”
Then there was the ‘Kate Bush incident’ when the younger British singer recent from her Wuthering Heights stardom got here to Australia.
“She was completely pleasant. EMI, nice firm. She was doing a primary tour wherever on this planet after Wuthering Heights, and he or she’s doing it on Countdown. Effectively, I’ve deliberate this factor. I’ve acquired castles, hanging vines, wild horses all these items taking place behind her,” he recollects.
“It’s not fairly what we have been considering for the clip”
“I used to be fairly pumped. Then they stated, ‘It’s not fairly what we have been considering for the clip.’
“They handed me the lyrics for Hammer Horror. They have been launching a brand new single however the one one that by no means acquired the data was the producer and director of the present.”
Emery completed his time with a loopy whirlwind abroad jaunt with Meldrum doing interview with the likes of Elton John, ABBA, Rod Stewart and extra. The ’80s have been coming and comedy was luring Emery on to different tasks which might ultimately turn into Quick Ahead, Full Frontal and later Kath & Kim.
He credit score producers Michael Shrimpton and Robbie Weekes for creating and defending the present, permitting its younger employees to dream, fail and succeed.
“He had this bunch of wacky, zany, inventive, untrained folks working beneath him”
“I had one of the best govt producer and his title was Michael Shrimpton, and he ended up being Head of Leisure on the ABC. He had this bunch of wacky, zany, inventive, untrained folks working beneath him who have been accountable completely to him, however to not the folks above him. So once I grew to become an govt producer, I realized that you should have constructed a firewall between administration and the creatives,” he observes.
“(ABC administration) didn’t get the present in any respect. They needed it, however they didn’t know why. They didn’t perceive it, and so they actually didn’t perceive the way it operated.”
However there is just one man who’s Countdown‘s dwelling legacy.
“The present is Molly,” Emery insists. “Molly was a real inventive and he had the connection with the trade. Not us. We have been public servants, purely by osmosis, we grew to become (creatives).
“It was Molly’s present.”
“It was Molly’s present. I don’t care what anybody says. He acquired loads out of it as properly. Our accountability was to make a tv present for (an viewers). If you happen to’re a producer or director, it’s important to make a present that’s acquired ebb and circulation. Molly didn’t know something about that stuff.
“He was simply throwing all of the actually nice stuff on the wall and let it go to air. However should you try this, you’ve acquired nothing to go to on the finish, since you’ve shot all of it up towards the wall within the first 5 minutes.
“I realized loads about ardour off that man, as a result of he was so obsessed with stuff that he was hysterical. However he was proper! That’s what shit me too, most of time. He was invariably proper.
“Like Devo. We’re all considering ‘Molly, you’re mad! Guys carrying flower pots on their heads, and also you need to put them on the present?’ And he was completely proper.
“The legacy is Molly.”
Countdown 50 Years On 7.30pm on Saturday 16 November on ABC.
Images: Courtesy ABC.
