The Paul Hogan Show

Ah, Memories.

Channel 4 in the UK started playing this as one of their very first programmes and, at the age of 9, it had us hooked for life. The easy-going charm of Hoges combined with his love of TV meant that either his spoofs, sitcom-sketches and his stand-up material always won audiences over.

Bloody hard to find now, we were luck to tape a number of them when Channel 4 played a batch of them again (as The Best of the Paul Hogan Show) in the 1991. The show has not been heard from since.

This is a shame, as the format is much more welcome than the ususal "long-winded-build-up-for-a-scathing-putdown" favoured by most shows these days.

We thankfully were able to transfer out tapes to the wonders of recordable DVD, so we have them backed-up once the tapes have packed-in through sheer age.

The wonders of The Incredible Weed, Benny 5-0, Leo Wanker, Perce the Wino, A Fistful of Ravioli, Arthur Dunger, Mullet and numerous others will not be lost to time so easily.

Loved watching this series on TV back in the day, always loved seeing him making toast by nailing bread to the wall and using a blow torch on it, ingenious, lol all the way

My first exposure to Paul Hogan was when his series was syndicated on American television in the early 1980's. I always thought he was a tremendous performer, both in the material he wrote and the wide variety of characters he portrayed.

I found him far superior to Benny Hill, since Hogan's work, unlike Hill's, seemed more contemporary. Hill's work, although often amusing, always seemed like recycled music hall/"Carry On" film/"Laugh In" stuff. If Hogan did draw on things, they were instead Monty Python and Saturday Night. If he didn't draw on things, his work could be quite original, and his ability to continually re-invent characters was quite good (I recall his middle-aged beach bum character, Arthur Dunger, eventually being turned into a middle-aged beach bum superhero, and then into a middle-aged beach bum superhero video game character who ended up destroying the person playing the game).

Sadly, when "Crocodile Dundee" came out the show (which Hogan on the Tonight Show once joked was only on in America at 2 AM) got yanked, presumably for repackaging and reselling to capitalize on Hogan's new movie star status. The quality of his films declined rapidly, however, and I'm supposing up until last month, when a DVD was supposed to be released in Australia, no one saw the value in re-releasing these little masterpieces of comedy.

Although some things in "Crocodile Dundee" came close (my favorite gag in that was the "updating" of the film, "Walkabout," having its star, David Gumpilil, walk onto the scene with face paint, spear--and blue jeans!), Hogan never was able, in my opinion, to bring the magic of his TV show to his films.

One should be grateful, though, for his show, and hope a DVD will be coming this way soon.

Perhaps one of, if not, the most memorable Aussie icons would have to be none other than PAUL HOGAN. Out of his material ever since he caked audiences on "New Faces", the one thing that he is most remembered for is "The Paul Hogan Show". Whoever could forget Leo Wan*er, Luigi The Unbelievable, that dumb arse Strop or the ever so sexy Delvene Delaney. Thew show was indeed one of 'laugh your pants off' sketches, clever satire and pretty decent stand-up comedy. In fact, the show even made the No.2 spot on "50 Years 50 Shows"- You might say that "The Paul Hogan Show" is a milestone in Australian Television and proof that Mr Hogan indeed has it! I must say though, it is most unfortunate that Hoges could not have the same impact on audiences after his TV run and the box-office smash "Crocodile Dundee". Anyway, I strongly advise you to get a copy of "The Best Of The Paul Hogan Show" on DVD. A 5/5 Classic TV show!

I was a big fan of this show in the '80's. I remember this show so fondly. My favorite recurring skit was the one where Paul Hogan and John Cornell played room-mates in this seedy little apartment. To this day I still fall down laughing when I think about them preparing their breakfast. They'd nail their bread to the wall and toast it with a blow-torch. This is one of the few shows whose collection I would buy if it was made available to the public.