The Paul Hogan 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.

Judging from comments made, a lot of people have been waiting for a DVD of the Paul Hogan Show. Well, it's finally out, in Region 4 at least. It's a 2-disc DVD featuring the best of Hoges and all his small-screen characters, and supporting cast including John Cornell (as Strop), Delvine Delaney, Andrew Harwood and John Blackman. 'The Best of the Paul Hogan Show' is rated PG, covers the years 1977-79 mainly, and runs for 370 minutes.

I have to admit that much of the material seems quite dated now, and politically incorrect, but then that was the 70s. The formula is simple: backyard ocker fun that appeals to the workers and pokes fun at politicians and others in the public eye. Notable politicians who get a (dis)honourable mention include former Australian Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Malcolm Fraser.

I somehow discovered this show as a 12 year old kid in North Carolina in the US in the early 80s. I swear I think it aired on PBS, which also ran Benny Hill episodes at night. Although I remember laughing hysterically and loving the show, I really only remember two actual bits. One was the skits where he and Strop lived in a shack and would make toast by impaling a piece of bread on a nail in the wall and then using a blowtorch on it. The other was one of his monologues where he discussed his first date and kiss at the movies. He took a girl to a Tarzan movie and, following the romantic advice of some friends, basically botched the entire thing until he finally managed to stumble into the kiss. "I thought all me birthdays had come at once!". He told about trying to blow into the girl's ear, but forgot he had popcorn in his mouth and so blew a piece into her ear where it got stuck, and how he waited for a romantic scene to try to kiss her, but the only semi-romantic scene was where Cheetah had to give a drowning Tarzan mouth to mouth. LOL!

I'd love to see this show again somewhere, but I do also fear that it couldn't possibly live up to my memories of it.

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.

Before the "Come and Say G'Day" commercials in 1983 and the Crocodile Dundee movie in 1986 there was the Paul Hogan Show. It was Australia's Benny Hill with sophomoric but clean, biting humor yet without the infamous ribaldry. The show usually opened with a welcoming monologue featuring wisecracks in front of a live audience. Then would come a series of shorts. One of the recurring skits featured Hogan and John Cornell as two losers in a ramshackle bachelor pad planning out their supposed evening with the ladies. In a style that truly mimicked Benny Hill there were frequently accelerated-film skits. One that I remember featured Hogan trying to set up camp to the accompaniment of Canned Heat's "Up The Country".

Although sometimes bland, the Paul Hogan show definitely had its moments. One of the most unforgettable performances was Hogan as the trenchcoat-clad man in the city park, singing to the accompaniment of lush Phil Spector-esque instrumentals: "There's someone, waiting around you, just stop and see. There is someone, waiting to know you, over there, behind the tree! There is someone, who has something, that he wants the world to see! Oh somebody, anybody! oh for God sake! look at me!" [holding trenchcoat wide open] "LOOK AT ME!"

Do any tapes exist anymore? If so, drop me a line.