The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia has uncovered rare and unseen footage from Australia’s lead-up to colour television as it marks the 50th anniversary of its launch.
Among the treasures unearthed by the NFSA to celebrate the anniversary tomorrow is a promotional clip in which Graham Kennedy – in characteristic Kennedy style – demonstrates the advantages of colour to television pioneer Sir Eric Pearce.
The footage, produced in full colour by GTV for the 1968 Royal Melbourne Show, has never been broadcast. In another clip made for the Show, Bert Newton, Patti McGrath (later Patti Newton) and Mike Walsh ponder the alterations that colour television will require from their on-air appearances.
The appetite for new colour technology was intense as the production sector prepared for a nationwide launch throughout the early 1970s. The opening sequence of Eric Porter Productions’ Yellow House (1974) is a psychedelic explosion of colour and movement.
Channel Seven’s preparations for the launch included a stark warning to audiences not to fall for dodgy tradesmen who offered to convert black and white televisions, a line-up of dancers to showcase the potential of modern colour transmission, and a chat with its ornithological icon, Percy Penguin.
Other content re-discovered by the NFSA includes a visit by then-PM Gough Whitlam to an NEC television factory in Penrith, and a Philips Natural TV ad celebrating colour so true it made household pets want to climb inside the box.
“By 1975, Australians had waited more than a decade for colour television and its impact was immediate and transformational,” said Tara Marynowsky, curator at the NFSA. “These rarely seen stories demonstrate the sense of anticipation and the appetite for technological advancement at the time.”
All footage, plus accompanying editorial exploring into the transformation that colour television brought to Australia, is live on the NFSA website.
Image: Graham Kennedy with Sir Eric Pearce (screen still)