The Bobby Limb Show

This was a popular series in its day. Bobby Limb's series started as "Bobby Limb's Late Show" in 1959, became "The Bobby Limb Show" in 1960. In 1961 it became "The Mobil-Limb Show".

I saw an episode of this series recently via the Mediatheque in Melbourne, which I believe is the first episode of the 1960. This series is before my time, so some of the references were lost on me, but nevertheless I quite enjoyed it.

The episode features a mix of music, professional dancing, and comedy sketches, and begins by announcing which stations aired the series.

In one of the comedy sketches, there is a man who runs a very unusual employment agency. Another sketch was "The Adventures of Rob 'Em Good", a spoof of a popular British series of the era.

One thing that surprised me was a musical number (I think about autumn), which used a filmed insert depicting a father and his boy clearing up the fallen leaves. There was another filmed insert, a comedy sketch, set in a greyhound racing track. I was surprised that a 1959 Australian variety series would go to the effort of using filmed inserts, which suggests how quickly local television series evolved from the simple productions it started off with.

The rest of the episode included more comedy, dancing and music, and closed with music provided by the Sydney Male Choir.

One thing that is worth mentioning about the episode, is that the original commercials were intact. Of the 60-minute program, only about 9 minutes consisted of commercials. Compare that with today's 40-minute "hour" shows. Additionally, those 1960 commercials have quite a nice 1950s/early-1960s flavour to them.

Since a good amount of the series still exists (at least 20 episodes), it might not be a bad idea to give it a DVD release. The series is dated, perhaps, but that just adds to the charm.