The Paul Hogan Show

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.

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.

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.

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.