Explore TV Series

Number 96 was a popular Australian soap opera set in a Sydney apartment block. Don Cash and Bill Harmon of the Cash Harmon Television production company, produced the series for Network Ten, which requested a Coronation Street-type serial, and specifically one that explored adult subjects. The premise, original story outlines, and the original characters were devised by David Sale who also wrote the scripts for the first episodes and continued as script editor for much of the show's run. The series proved to be a huge success, running from 1972 until 1977. Number 96 was so popular it spawned a feature film version, filmed in December 1973. Number 96 was known for its sex scenes and nudity, somewhat risque at the time, and for its comedy characters. The series was the first Australian soap opera to feature an openly gay character.

Boney is an Australian television series produced by Fauna Productions during 1971 and 1972, featuring James Laurenson in the title role of Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. Two series, each of thirteen episodes were filmed. The series is centred on Bonaparte, a half-Australian Aboriginal character, created by Arthur Upfield, who wrote twenty nine novels about him from 1929 until his death in 1964.

Around the World in 80 Days is an animated television series that lasted one season of sixteen episodes, broadcast during the 1972-1973 season by NBC. It was the first Australian-produced cartoon to be shown on American network television. Leif Gram directed all sixteen episodes, and the stories were loosely adapted by Chester "Chet" Stover from the novel by Jules Verne.

A suspended policeman searches for the evidence to link a businessman with a murder in this continuing story drama series conspicuously modelled on The Fugitive. It was dumped after five weeks, perhaps due to its unpleasant central character.

Birds in the Bush is an Australian/United Kingdom situation comedy series produced in 1972. The series was set on a remote Australian property run by seven beautiful but naive young women. When the property is inherited by an English water diviner he and his Australian half-brother and an assistant begin living on the property and attempt to teach the nubile young women the ways of the world. The series focused on the physical attractiveness of the young women, who all wore skimpy blue smocks and had names like "Abigail", "Lolita", "Tuesday", "Wednesday" and "Buster", along with Carry On-style innuendo.

The lead character, Aunty Jack, a unique comic creation — an obese, moustachioed, gravel-voiced transvestite, part trucker and part pantomime dame — who habitually solves any problem by knocking people unconscious or threatening to 'rip their bloody arms off'. Visually, she is unmistakable, dressed in a huge, tent-like blue velvet dress, football socks, workboots, and a golden boxing glove on her right hand. She rides everywhere on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and referres to everyone as "me little lovelies" — when she is not uttering her familiar threat: "I'll rip yer bloody arms off!", a phrase which immediately passed into the vernacular.