Sandra Levy (former ABC TV executive): They were high-profile. I’ve always felt that one of the ABC’s roles was to be the provider of diverse and interesting and sometimes risky content and giving new people a chance to try things out.
Rick McKenna: It was all go until the script notes started coming in from the ABC head of comedy,which were just bizarre. “Kim is too unlikable. Kel is implausible,no male would be that much of a nice guy. No one will believe Sharon would tolerate that relationship. Please don’t mention trams or the Nepean Highway because Sydney won’t like that.” And the cracker:“No one wants to see a mother and daughter argue for half an hour.” Which is the bedrock of the show.
Sandra Levy: I was a very new director of development – I was only observing,I didn’t have a decision-making role at that moment – and I was invited to a meeting where the director of television and head of comedy and somebody in legal were trying to get out of[making the show]. From what I could see,they had no grounds for that. It looked to me like it was a fixed contract.
Gina Riley: As I remember it,it was the Friday afternoon and we were going to pre-production the following Monday and we got a call saying,“It’s no longer the direction we want to go in.” We were like,“What? What does that mean?” We were completely rocked,but we thought we’ve got a pretty watertight deal memo. And they were like,“We’re doing you a favour;you don’t want to do this to yourselves.” And then we went,“OK,we’ll go somewhere else.” And they said,“Oh,no,you can’t take it anywhere else.” So that was when we went,“You know what? This is very unjust. And we’re going to fight it.”
Jane Turner: When the ABC wanted to cancel just before we were to start shooting it was hard to take. But we fought back. We were very determined to make the show we had pitched,and in reality we didn’t stop writing and working on it. It was too awful so we just pretended it wasn’t happening.
Sandra Levy: Not long after that meeting the director of television resigned,and I was appointed director of television,and one of the first things I did was contact Rick and say,“Let’s sort this out.” And we did very quickly and very satisfactorily. It seemed to me that the ABC had made a commitment to it,and from what I could see it was going to be a terrific show. I was just trying to untangle what looked like a debacle,really. It was not bureaucracy at its best,to put it mildly.
Congratulations,it’s a hit
Sandra Levy: We knew it was good. But I think the enormity of its success probably surprised all of us a little bit.
Gina Riley: We thought it maybe would have a little audience,we thought it was good enough to give it a go. We thought three people and their dog might like it,you know?
Glenn Robbins: We had filmed the first season and I had it all on VHS tape and I brought it to my partner. She watched the first episode and didn’t laugh. And I remember thinking in that split second,“Oh well,it’s OK because nothing will change the joy I had in doing that show. We gave it our best shot.” And then she went,“Can I watch another one?” And she ended up watching the whole series in one day and has been a huge fan ever since.
Magda Szubanski: We sensed there was an audience for it because of the response toBig Girl’s Blouse,but you never know. I mean,I didn’t know withBabe either. There’s so many factors:it depends on what the mood of the country is;a world event can happen between completing a project and it being released and suddenly the zeitgeist is just not what it was when you created the show. You just have to go with your instinct,but we all create things that don’t work,so who’s to know.
Rick McKenna:[After the second season] the most senior programming executive of a network took me out to lunch and was waxing lyrical about what said network would do if they had the show and how it should have been theirs in the first place. We were on our second bottle when I said,“Who’s your favourite character,what’s your favourite ep?” And this person blinked and stared into space across the harbour,laughed and said,“I haven’t seen it. But I’ve seen the numbers – and they are good numbers.”
Magda Szubanski: What’s interesting is that it’s just lasted so long,and it’s still relevant,and people are still watching it,kids are finding it on Netflix. I actually think it’s partly because we’re living in a very Kardashian moment and I suppose that was the beginning of the realisation of Andy Warhol’s “15 minutes of fame”. Essentially,Kim Craig nee Day conducts herself as a celebrity. That whole cult of celebrity was beginning then,and of course we’re now right in the peak of it,so the show was just created at the perfect moment. That was great instinct on Gina’s part.
Now everyone wants to get in on the act
Rick McKenna: The guest stars came about organically. Kylie came about through merchandise. Someone said they heard Dannii Minogue on the radio saying she and Kylie haveKath&Kim oven mitts and aprons and wear them around the house. So through contacts I sent them a box of merch,got a thank you note back,and then went to Kylie’s manager,“We’re writing a new series,would Kylie consider it?” I woke up the next day to an email saying,“Kylie would love to do it. When,where,how?”
Gina Riley: Every time we’d pinch ourselves and just go,“Really?” Incredible. It was so exciting thinking up things for them to do. You go,“Oh,what can Kylie do? Oh my God,of course,Kylie can be Epponnee.” Michael Buble doing carols and Kath and Kel being the Jazzy B dancers. It was so fun thinking up ideas for different people.
Rick McKenna: I was at a lunch in London and Richard E. Grant was sitting beside me and he goes,“I loveKath&Kim.” And I went,“Well,there’s a role for you”,and he said,“When? Here’s my agent’s number.” We didn’t even have a project going then.
Magda Szubanski: Doing the stuff with Kylie Minogue,it felt like the circle was completed. Because the Brits really understoodKath&Kim in a way that they haven’t understood many other Australian comedies. Because ofNeighbours,they understood Australian suburbia,they understood what we were satirising. It was so great that she played along with it.
Rick McKenna: Michael Buble sawKath&Kim on the in-flight entertainment,landed,went to the Logies rehearsal,met Gina and Jane and said,“I just saw you on the plane.” By the end of the night they’re rolling drunk together and Gina’s gone,“We want you in the next show”,and he was like,“Say when.”
Ted Emery: Shane Warne was terrific. His only problem was he had huge problems trying to be a bad bowler playing backyard cricket. No matter what he did,the thing would still turn about 60 degrees when the ball hit the ground and spin off. There was nothing he could do,his fingers just automatically spun the ball.
Magda Szubanski: Shane was just lovely and such a good sport in every way. I think people are going to be really moved by the behind-the-scenes glimpses because he was just fun and got it and went along with it and took the piss out of himself,and who doesn’t love that about someone?
How the (commemorative wedding) sausage was made
Jane Turner: We wrote at my place after school drop-off in the morning. We’d go like the clappers for two to three hours,generally brainstorming,talking about trends,what’s in the news,what’s going on in our lives.
Gina Riley: Jane and I would sit in a room – always at her house,it never worked at my house. We tried to be grown-ups and go into an office once and we just sat there looking at the screen going,“Nup,nothing’s coming.” We had to be where things were happening,schools were calling us,her kids were there sick. That domestic environment was really important.
Jane Turner: Sometimes we’d come up with a funny line or situation or funny thing we overheard or a joke and we’d work a situation around it. Then we’d improvise in our characters and write the dialogue.
Gina Riley:Absolutely Fabulous just blew my mind when I saw it,it did for all of us. AndSeinfeld,in that brilliant way they’d write a stream for each character and then tie it up in a really funny,satisfying way at the end. They were big influences,for sure.
Ted Emery: My job was to construct a sandbox for them to play in,to make sure they didn’t throw sand in one another’s eyes and make sure they got the job done when their energy was up. They’re fantastic at what they do,and so much of it is spontaneous,and they’re creating so much on the spot that it’s up to us to accommodate that to record that.
Gina Riley: We would have done maybe 20 drafts of every script. We would often start with a joke and would build a whole episode from that. Banging them into shape and trying to get everybody’s story to line up and then finding a satisfying way of tying them all up at the end took some time. But the characters came easily,and they could do anything or go anywhere. We weren’t constrained by any premise.
Ted Emery: Originally they wanted to[have bits] like they do in reality where they would sit and talk to camera. And it looked awful. They kept breaking character almost. It just didn’t work. So we dumped it and it just brought the thing alive.
Peter Rowsthorn: They’d rewritten it so many times because they couldn’t get it on air,so it was extremely tight. And we were really good;we were so scared that it was going to be shelved that we really concentrated very hard. We’d often get it in the first take because the mojo was there,we were listening really hard.
Ted Emery: Usually we’d aim for one take. Sometimes you’d go to three takes,and if I thought the energy was going downhill I’d cut them and say,“We’re OK with half of the first one,half of the second one,I’ll do a couple of quick pickups and let’s move on.”
Jane Turner: I guess people liked that it’s so local. They could (and can) relate to all the places,characters and the peculiar Australian things like vomiting at the races,but also to the ways we fill our lives with funny trends like book clubs,Australian Idol,wine time.
Glenn Robbins: I think people like it because they relate to it. They see themselves in those characters. And Kath and Kel,we’ve all had arguments like that and we all have those little foibles. That’s why I think it’s so popular. If it was characters you didn’t relate to it may not have been as successful. The job is to have fun with – hopefully it’s not at – those characters.
Magda Szubanski: I’ve always maintained the only reason we could satirise it is because we are suburban,originally,ourselves. The kitchen of my parents’ house was almost exactly the same layout as the one inKath&Kim.
Gina Riley: Comedy is hit and miss. If anybody tells you any different,they’re wrong. You just cannot kick that goal every single time. I have never watched the show. Everybody finds it so bizarre – I find it bizarre – but I’ve never watched it all the way through. I think that was because Jane and I would sit in the edit and we would have watched every episode 20 times before it ever went to air.
Glenn Robbins: I still watch it and I still laugh at it,because the things they explored were domesticity,foibles,love,vulnerability – all those things are at the core of that show,and it’s people who really love each other in different ways. And it’s family.
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That’s all folks
Gina Riley: It took some convincing[to do a special],but we wanted to celebrate the show at 20,and Jane and I knew that Jane and I talking as Jane and I is not going to do it any justice,sitting there pontificating about what everything means and blah,blah. That’s not how we roll. And the only way we thought we could do it was bringing us back together. And in the end,it was a really good decision because when you do a show,you never know what’s going to be the end,and then it sort of ends and you go,“Oh,well,that was that.”
Jane Turner: When I look at the footage for the specials now,there was a lot of laughing and falling about like idiots. It was very hard juggling the producing,writing and acting with being a mother. It was pretty exhausting acting all day then doing meetings and then the edit,but it was all pretty great fun,I have to say. We were so lucky to have had those times.
Gina Riley: There’s lots I’m fond of. We are so grateful that it still lives on and people are still watching it,but we can’t recreate that. That was a time and place,that is what it is. This is absolutely the end. It’s not coming back. That wig has been burned,I’m telling you. This is it.
Kath&Kim:Our Effluent Lives is on Seven,Sunday,November 20,7pm and Monday,November 21,7.30pm. The originalKath&Kim is on Netflix and 7Plus.
Email the author atkquinn@theage.com.au,or follow him on Facebook at karlquinnjournalist and on Twitter@karlkwin.
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