Monday, June 14, 2004
Bert, Bert, say it ain't so! I just read the most terrible article about how Bert, no longer content to host the best morning show in Australia, has somehow lost his mind along with his hair and decided to copy Kerri-Anne Kennerley!!!!! What, so it wasn't enough just to make fun of visiting celebrities who didn't realise what sort of show it was, and to tolerate Moira's inane infomercials with a knowing wink, or to summon Belvedere to read out his latest dumb-arse limerick about the Friday morning recipe?
Okay, now I re-read that I realise that perhaps it wasn't enough, but Bert is one of the few old-school entertainers this country still has on its television screens: someone who can interview people with a disarming interest, no matter if it's some washed-up 80s cabaret singer or Tonia Todman with her latest handicrafts suggestions. I still remember the time that stupid blonde who used to host the Bugs Bunny Show or the like brought on an animatronic toy monkey that did the Macarena and showed it to a thoroughly unimpressed kd lang! That was television gold!
Recently I saw Bert being interviewed on Rove, and it only served to spotlight the enormous gulf between the vapid, slow-thinking, one-trick pony that Rove is, and the consummate showman that Bert is, and that Rove lusts to be but can never achieve as long as he lives!!
Sophie Cunningham, the author, was recently interviewed in The Reader, where I work, and one of the questions was, "You've been on Bert. Is it all downhill from here?" I couldn't agree more. You know you've made it in Melbourne if you've been on Bert, as well as if you've been on Carols by Candlelight, had Steve Bracks mispronounce your name, been slagged off by Andrew Bolt, appeared in a gossip column with one of the cast of The Secret Life of Us, and had Chopper Read paint your portrait... (Feel free to come up with more suggestions of when you know you've made it in this one-horse town!)
Okay, now I re-read that I realise that perhaps it wasn't enough, but Bert is one of the few old-school entertainers this country still has on its television screens: someone who can interview people with a disarming interest, no matter if it's some washed-up 80s cabaret singer or Tonia Todman with her latest handicrafts suggestions. I still remember the time that stupid blonde who used to host the Bugs Bunny Show or the like brought on an animatronic toy monkey that did the Macarena and showed it to a thoroughly unimpressed kd lang! That was television gold!
Recently I saw Bert being interviewed on Rove, and it only served to spotlight the enormous gulf between the vapid, slow-thinking, one-trick pony that Rove is, and the consummate showman that Bert is, and that Rove lusts to be but can never achieve as long as he lives!!
Sophie Cunningham, the author, was recently interviewed in The Reader, where I work, and one of the questions was, "You've been on Bert. Is it all downhill from here?" I couldn't agree more. You know you've made it in Melbourne if you've been on Bert, as well as if you've been on Carols by Candlelight, had Steve Bracks mispronounce your name, been slagged off by Andrew Bolt, appeared in a gossip column with one of the cast of The Secret Life of Us, and had Chopper Read paint your portrait... (Feel free to come up with more suggestions of when you know you've made it in this one-horse town!)
