Adventure Island Pt A

Popular Australian Children Programme of early 70's in pantomime format, recently revived on DVD and for Shopping Centres. It featured John Micheal Howson, Ernie Bourne, Sue Donavan (Jason Donavan's Mum)& Liz Harris

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[waitingtolive]

Whatever happened to Fester Fumble & Miser meanie?

[BlackMariaDownUnder]

@waitingtolive

Fester Fumble (Ernie Bourne) made many character apperances in shows like Homicide & Prisoner & also had a long career in stage work, in such places as Dracula's Theatre Restauraunt.

Miser Meanie (Colin Mc Ewan) also did lots of TV work, most notably on the Naked Vicar Show, And the Big Men Fly , Ryan and many others, and worked as a 3AK radio announcer in his later years. He died in 2009 and Ernie in 2007

[ohthepussies]

How did you get hold of this old time classic ? Are there many more episodes ?

[BlackMariaDownUnder]

I don't know the original source, I got it with a bunch of other shows from a TV collector. I want to get more but no one has the sense to release a DVD of it, though John Micheal Howson is reviving it as a shopping centre entertainment, following the sucess iof Wiggles & Hi 5 in this area

[BlackMariaDownUnder]

A good question, it annoys me that we can see a swag of US & UK TV from the dawn of television but very little Aust TV pre 80's. Did you know that John Micheal Howson has revived it as a kids entertainment to tour shopping centres, there will probably be DVD's of that, I think he's seen how well the Wiggles have done

[Leowen2]

Mate at the start I almost went back to 68.

[Tish1023]

@Tish1023 Notice they are not talking down to the kids and using "big" words!

[Tish1023]

The theme sounds very similar to Gilligan's Island!

[LiteracyLabyrinth]

That sent chills through me as I remembered as a 5 year old that opening music and those crazy puppet birds. I felt joy to see them again. Every aspect was magical and I am so glad to relive the memories here. I had forgotten the main premise but never forgot the music and Percy the Panda.

[naedsukram]

gotta say, this show scared the crap outta me when I was about 4 or 5 living in melbourne, I ran and hid when the opening credits came on, my older sister used to stir me about it. I think I sorta liked it, but it was scary to watch, I see now why...Adventure Island is produced like a Hitchcock thriller with all that dim lighting, what were they thinking. Good to re-visit though, thanx for this.

[avidutubewatcher]

@BlackMariaDownUnder - After reading your site I emailed ABC Archives in Sydney to see what they had and they said they held most of the series but were not able to copy it to DVD or post it on the ABC site due to copyright issues

[mumandtwins]

isn't it amazing they would never get away with it now, esp with regards to giving out the addresses of the child contributors to the show

[crocfme]

Lol. Howson's clown looks like something out of a Steven King novel in this clip!