Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos (found cancelled Australian mid-aired comedy TV special; 1992)
Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos is an Australian television special showing videos that were deemed too sexually explicit to air on Australia's Funniest Home Video Show. Airing just once on September 3rd, 1992, the episode was canceled while airing, and was considered lost for another 16 years until shown again in August 2008 also on Nine Network.
Background
Australia's Funniest Home Video Show premiered in 1990, and was similar in concept to the television show America's Funniest Home Videos; viewers would send in funny home videos, and the video deemed the "funniest" by the studio audience was awarded a prize at the end of the show. The producers often received racy or risqué videos that couldn't be included into the program due to its family-friendly nature; however, since the show's policy was that videos sent in were then the show's property, the rowdiest ones were compiled in an adult one off special.
Content
The special followed the same as the SFW version, in which the videos were shown, accompanied by Mulray making jokes about what was shown.. Mulray also did voiceovers on this version as well.
Some of the content of the videos that were shown in the special included shots of animal genitals, humans or animals humorously engaging in sexual actws, people being unclothed, and other situations that often relied on simply dry humor, such as a child grabbing a kangaroo's testicles, a man lifting a barbell with his "Weiner", a man getting his head squeezed between an dancer's large breasts, an elderly woman removing an envelope from a stripper's undergarments with her false teeth,people running into water with flaming pieces of toilet paper hanging from their butt, and having sex in the middle of a park.
Cancellation
"We apologize for this interruption. Unfortunately, a technical problem prevents us continuing our scheduled program for the moment. In the meantime, we bring you a brief, alternative program."
—Nine Network announcer, during the technical difficulty card.
While having dinner, then-Nine Network owner Kerry Packer was informed of the show by his friends. he started watching it, and was offended by its crudeness that he picked up a phone, called the studio operators and said in angrily: "Get that shit off the air!" The special was canceled while running, and was replaced with Cheers for the rest of the time it was supposed to air in. In different parts of Australia, the program displayed a different message depending on the area it was airing in. In Melbourne and Brisbane, the station simply started airing an episode of Cheers after a scheduled commercial break. The show was canceled before it was scheduled to air in the state of Western Australia, and thus its Nine Network affiliate showed a brief message mentioning that the special won't be aired and played a rerun of Cheers. This came as a shock to many confused viewers as the special was pulling in a record number of viewers. After the announcement, Nine reportedly received phone calls from viewers, with the majority of callers upset with the program being pulled from the air so abruptly.
Rebroadcast
In 2008, a full copy of the show was located by Nine's head of factual television. It was aired in its entirety at 8:30 PM on August 28, 2008 - one week short of sixteen years after the incomplete original airing, and at the same timeslot as the original 1992 broadcast. Though this broadcast did cut out portions of Mulary's monologues that included jibes about child obesity and making an offensive Indian accent had to be cut from the special in order to meet Australian television standards that did not exist in 1992. To create hype for the rebroadcast, Nine promoted the special as "the show Kerry Packer didn't want you to see", and featured commentary from Bert Newton. As a nod to the original broadcast, during the rebroadcast the special was interrupted by the Channel Nine bumper and "technical difficulties" announcement 36 minutes in, cutting to the Cheers opening credits before resuming to a monologue.
Videos
External Links
- The Daily Telegraph's article on Kerry Packer ordering the show to be off the air. Retrieved 28 Apr '19
- An article about the broadcast of Australia's Naughtiest home videos Retrieved 04 Oct '19
- Wikipedia page on Australia's Naughiest Home Videos. Retrieved 04 Oct '19