If There Was One Thing Dad Loved More Than “Hey Hey It’s Saturday”
Alright, so I’ve decided to weigh into the Hey Hey It’s Saturday blackfella debate, because if you think about it my opinion is highly regarded and all discussion can pretty much end after I’ve spoken.
Hey Hey It’s Saturday was on air for just shy of 30 fucking years. In television, that’s a fucking long time. For a television show to last that fucking long with very little change of format or change of team members over that time proves that whatever they were doing, they were doing right. I’ll be the first to admit that the show started to get a little stale towards the end, and it was clear they were really pushing for ideas, but whatever.
The first time I heard about Channel 9 bringing back Hey Hey for reunion special I thought to myself “Why don’t they just fucking call it Hey Hey Channel 9 Is Really Fucked For Ideas And Are Scraping The Bottom Of The Barrel!“. But, after watching the first reunion special and most of the second it wasn’t the gratuitious circlejerk that I thought it’d be. Most the regular cast were back, and aside from a few fuck ups (which you can excuse after a break of 10 years), slid back into it like it was nothing.
One of the most popular and well-known segments was Red Faces. Goes back as far as I can fucking remember it. 3 (sometimes 4) acts, consisting of amateurs getting on TV with some stupid fucking routine they’ve come up for the chance to win a bit of cheddar and have a good time doing it. Most of the acts were shithouse, Symonds gonged them and everyone had a laugh and moved on.
But last night some American cocksucker had to go and fucking sully that for everyone.
This cocksucker:
I’m not going to go into detail, because we all know what Connick, Jr. is throwing a fucking bitchfit about.
But, the important thing to remember is that the whole premise of Red Faces was to give a bunch of amateurs a chance to get on TV. Amateurs. People without sponsors behind them or agents or cash. Props and costumes were fucking abysmal, and only added to the “hilarity” of the sketch being performed.
And that’s what happened during the reunion show. A group of blokes (only one of which is actually white) put on some wigs and some makeup and recreated an act they’d performed years ago. The aforementioned cocksucker took exception to that, and scored them a 0 based purely upon their appearance. Absolutely no consideration given to their performance, or the reason for their appearance in relation to their performance. And yet he has the fucking audacity to suggest THEY were discriminatory?
For the record, apart from the fact that I simply didn’t find the act funny at all, I have no fucking problem with what was presented at all as part of the act.
How fucking dare that cocksucker come to our fucking country and tell us what is and is not acceptable to show on our fucking television screens?
Given the amount of absolute fucking bullshit television that is churned out by American TV stations that ends up being show in Australia, the return of Hey Hey is a fucking welcome relief. The fact that for 30 years the same people showed up once a week and put together 2 hours of unpredictable television (the only thing you could predict was that Daryl would be wearing a god-awful jumper) is something that the American networks in this day and age can only dream of, and furthermore have no fucking hope of ever achieving.
While most of us know this already, I can safely point out that Connick Jr. is a hypocritical piece of shit. One needs only to take a butchers at a Youtube clip which shows an appearance he made on MadTV back in 1996. I’ll go as far as to say that he doesn’t appear to be wearing blackface as part of that sketch, but the impersonation is certainly there. And make-up or no make-up, it’s the same fucking thing.
Fuck you Harry Connick Jr. I hope your fucking plane home crashes into the fucking sea.
Not only that, now we have Kamahl giving us his 2 fucking cents – courtesy of the Herald Sun:
Kamahl attacks Hey Hey It’s Saturday amid blackface racism debate
FORMER Hey, Hey It’s Saturday regular Kamahl has threatened legal action after he was literally drawn into the Red Faces skit which offended visiting singer Harry Connick Jr and sparked a world racism debate.
Kamahl told The Daily Telegraph he had endured years of racist remarks at his expense on the show but had enough after again being the butt of a joke during the now condemned Jackson Jive sketch.
…
Malaysian-born Kamahl was not among the personalities who agreed to return to air for the reunion special, but featured in a cartoon by resident artist Andrew Fyfe, which flashed up on screen during the skit with the words “Where’s Kamahl?”.
The veteran performer, whose “why are people so unkind?” comment featured often as a punchline on Hey Hey, said he did not watch the show out of disgust.
“It’s really just a desperate attempt at notoriety and publicity,” he said.
“I used to laugh along when I was a guest but deep down I was thinking why are people so unkind? It’s just the same old rubbish.
…
“Hey Hey is devoid of any real wit.
“It’s desperate. It’s toilet humour and it should be flushed.”
…
Wait, what?
Appearing on Hey Hey was the only reason I ever knew who the fuck Kamahl was. I knew he was a singer, and I knew he appeared in an advert for tea at some point and turned up at BDO a few years back. Apart from that, he’s a fucking nobody. A nobody of no fucking importance. It’s probably fair to say that continued appearances on Hey Hey kept up whatever scant public interest there was in him, keeping his “career” alive.
So why the fuck is he suddenly attacking Hey Hey?
If he thought the show was nothing more than constant toilet humour why did he keep appearing?
If he didn’t like the constant “racist attacks” on him when he appeared why did he keep showing up?
Kamahl can go fuck himself in the mouth. When you start being relevant again then I’ll care about what you fucking think.
Bring it on, bitches.
“And make-up or no make-up, it’s the same fucking thing.”
You probably won’t listen to me anyway, but the cause of the offense is in the makeup and the history behind it.
There is a difference between costuming and ‘blackface’. As you said, the point of the set is for people with no money, no resources, and usually no talent to get their 15 minutes out of the way quickly and quietly. The problem is that their homebrew costume and to a point the name of the act itself is more Minstrel than parody. I think the act themselves meant no genuine offense by it, just another example of the same shitty judgement that lead them to think going on Red Faces was a good idea.
However, the producers and various Channel 9 fluffers are meant to be the membrane of common sense, policy, and ethics between the creative vision and the broadcast. The show staff fucked up by not recognising that an act from 20 years ago might just be perceived differently, and I honestly wonder if they did it to euthanise this withered husk of Good Old Family Entertainment.
They should have known better, particularly in light of all the media controversy recently with Kyle “Massive Cunt” Sandilands, The Chaser’s Make A Wish, and Hungry Beast’s Netball Sex Scandal (though I haven’t heard any outrage about that save a reference on their own show and a Herald Sun commenter completely missing the point).
That it took a bland American musician who specialises in giving housewives something nasty to think about while she does the vacuuming to point out the idiocy of their decision is the sad part.
As for Kamahl, he’s a national fucking treasure and I won’t have you sully his name in my house. I saw him at that Big Day Out and he was spectacular … I think … I was kinda off my head.
It’s an Australian show made for Australian audiences, who perceive blackface/minstrel very differently to American audiences, Kat…. the main reason this became a controversy was because we offended the sensibilities of one Harry Connick Jr, and whenever a celebrity says or does anything the media goes crazy.
This piece about minstrels appeared in the Oz last week about minstrel shows in early Australia, it illustrates some of the differences between Oz and the US:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26102969-5013575,00.html
News you can use: apparently The Chaser did a send up of the Jackson Five on their show using pretty much exactly the same joke (bunch of guys wearing blackface), a couple of months ago. Where’s all the noise about that?
http://web.overland.org.au/?p=1801
Guess they just didn’t offend the right people. Where’s a damn American celebrity when you need one?
Have you been to Caribbean Gardens market? There’s a Kamahl rip-off going by the name of Derek J.
As for this post, well said. You should’ve seen the anti-discrimination people on the morning shows. They sooked as much as the environmentalists, feminists, right to life etc. Bunch of whinging homos.
I thought the kid last week who smeared Vegemite on his face and body was racist. How dare he make fun of darkies? I’m going to complain to Channel 9.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Harry Connex Jnr. needs to remember he is not in the U.S.A. and Australia has culture differences.
You may have heard of the Comedian King Billy Cokebottle who is a white fella by the name of Lois Beers. Beers dresses up as a Aboriginal and paints his face black. Lois has been taken to the Federal Court over his act and it’s been deemed legal under Racial Discrimination Act. As far as I am concerned it sets a precedent in Australia. http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/FMCA/2004/336.html
Connex Jnr. also needs to be reminded of that MadTV skit and movies like “White Chicks”.
As for Kamahl he needs to harden the fuck up and get over it.
Harry Connex Jr can go suck a big fat hairy cock. He’s cut (no pun intended) because we don’t have to deal with the stupid cunt talking about public transport.
Well fucking done to the Jackson Jive for coming back to Oz tv. That Burpinator cunt was more offensive.
Fuck PC. Bring back real variety tv. Bring back HHIS.