Wikipedia says.....
The Big Gig was a popular
Australian television comedy series. It was produced and broadcast by the
ABC in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was produced and directed by
Ted Robinson, who started his career as the director of the second series of the acclaimed
The Aunty Jack Show in the early 1970s. Largely based around performers sourced from the thriving
Melbourne stand-up comedy scene of that time, the series brought a number of new comedy acts to
national prominence and made major stars of its host, stand-up comedian
Wendy Harmer, who later became a top-rating host on morning radio in
Sydney in the 1990s, and the regularly featured act, The
Doug Anthony All-Stars.
Starting in
1989 and running until
1992 and originally named
Tuesday Night Live,
The Big Gig showcased both comedy and music and offered opportunities not available to the performers otherwise.
The show typically started with a
monologue from host
Wendy Harmer (or, from mid-1989 to mid-1990,
Glynn Nicholas) before launching into a musical act. Regulars on the show included the
house band The Swinging Sidewalks, the
Bachelors From Prague or
Zydeko Jump; the same band would also close the show while the
credits played over them.
A regular feature of
The Big Gig was the character 'Veronica Glenhuntly' (played by
comedian Jean Kittson), an acid-tongued
newsreader. Many storylines would run through her, including her on-air wooing, marriage and birth of twins (named Veronica, after herself, and Wayne, after her husband, golf-star Wayne "Lightning" Truscott). She was later joined by weather reporter Clinton Funt, played by musician and comedian
Phillip Scott. The character partly parodied contemporary ABC (Victoria) newsreader
Mary Delahunty, but her surname was also a reference to the elite
Melbourne suburb of
Glenhuntly. Kittson also played several other characters, including ditzy gym nut
Candida Royale and sinister
flight attendant Rose McCloud.
The Big Gig became known for showcasing many new comedy acts, including
Judith Lucy,
Anthony Morgan,
Jimeoin,
Greg Fleet,
Lano and Woodley (at the time members of a trio called The Found Objects, with
Scott Casley),
Scared Weird Little Guys and
The Umbilical Brothers ,
Nevertheless, major drawcards for both the studio audience and viewers at home was the regular cast. Some played characters -- for example, Glynn Nicholas portrayed saccharine children's TV performer
Paté Biscuit and her hand puppet Bongo (a broad send-up of 70s Aussie children's TV star
Patsy Biscoe) and oafish policeman Sergeant F*kn Smith. Co-writing Nicholas's material was the young
Shaun Micallef. Comedians
Matt Parkinson and
Matthew Quartermaine, aka
The Empty Pockets also played the
Lager Boys. The Lager Boys featured in a popular series of anarchic blackout sketches, promoting fictitious products and/or TV programs, and which were noted for including brief intercuts taken from pornographic videos. Viewers often taped
The Big Gig on their VCRs in order to replay the Lager Boys segments in slow motion.
Angela Moore, later a cast member of the children's programme
Play School, played another popular semi-regular character, the batty, screechy-voiced housewife
Shirley Purvis, with fellow
Play School alumnus
Glenn Butcher playing her hopeless son Darren. Shirley and Darren were characters they had originated while members of popular comedy troupe
The Castanet Club. Other regular cast members included
Denise Scott,
Anthony Ackroyd,
Lynda Gibson and Phillip Scott.
The most popular featured act was the irreverent
musical comedy trio the
Doug Anthony All Stars, also known as DAAS, whose trademark pseudo-military uniforms and shameless attacks on sacred cows quickly became legendary. The
Dougs, as they became known as, would often be on at the end of the program and were regulars up until 1991, when they left to produce their own show,
DAAS Kapital (also shown on ABC TV).
Repeats of
The Big Gig are occasionally still shown on
The Comedy Channel.