• About
  • The Red Witch: A Biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard
  • My novel: The Fur

Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth

~ The life of Katharine Susannah Prichard, the art of biography, and other things

Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth

Tag Archives: Robert Hughes

No more Blinky Bill: outcast texts and the fall of innocuous entertainers

17 Saturday May 2014

Posted by Nathan Hobby in politics and current affairs, technology and the digital world

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Blinky Bill, Hey Dad!, Robert Hughes, Rolf Harris

blinkybill

Robert Hughes is going to jail for some time, the same week Rolf Harris is on trial. It is a season of revealing the evil in our most innocuous entertainers. It’s not Nick Cave or Marilyn Manson or some other transgressive entertainer who turned out to be paedophiles, but the star of Hey Dad!, one of Australia’s most sentimental and bland sitcoms.

Before he was the star of Hey Dad!, Robert Hughes was the ranger in The New Adventures of Blinky Bill (1984-1987), the live-action puppet version which, despite the name, came before the more well-known animated version. I loved that show in early primary school; it was repeated each year, it seemed, and I didn’t tire of it. Robert Hughes was a kind, paternal presence on the show, at least in my memory. Appropriately, in one episode, Mrs Magpie has to reassess the character of her late husband, when it’s revealed he was a thief.
The show, will, of course, never be re-broadcast now, nor released on DVD. It will moulder in the archives, along with Hey Dad!, consigned to an unspoken category of texts, which if not censored are now effectively banned, outcast texts.
The ABC came up with an innovative (if slightly Stalinist) solution to this problem when The Collectors presenter Andy Muirhead was convicted of child pornography; they edited him out of the show, recycling segments which did not feature him with new introductions.
Of course, in this digital world, it is hard for anything to be completely off-bounds, and you can find VHS recordings of Hey Dad! and Blinky Bill on YouTube. You can watch them again, trying to take yourself back to the 1980s. Just like you can still listen to “Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport”. But you must do so with new knowledge of things behind the scenes. It’s hard enough to recapture what was special about most popular entertainment of the past; it will become impossible when you know the once beloved face is a predator.
What will happen to all the traces of Rolf Harris? His painting of the queen? His painting of the now-demolished nineteenth century Bassendean homestead for which the Perth suburb is named, built by my ancestor Peter Broun, and displayed with pride by the council? At our recent library booksale, there Rolf was, peeking out on the cover of all sorts of mediocre gift-type books of past decades. Perhaps the sorters will start consigning him straight to the bin. 
 *
An appendix: it was a nasty coincidence that the week the television star was arrested was the week Robert Hughes, the critic, died. I wonder if, in the fog of the future, they will be confused very often in the minds of future generations? It would be unfair to the late Hughes if they were. 

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 269 other subscribers

Nathan on Twitter

My Tweets

Categories

  • academic (9)
  • archives and sources (8)
  • autobiographical (58)
  • biographers (10)
  • biographical method (24)
  • biographical quests (16)
  • biographies (16)
    • political biography (1)
  • biographies of living subjects (2)
  • biographies of writers, artists & musicians (11)
  • biographies of writers, artists and musicians (20)
  • biography as a literary form (8)
  • biography in fiction (2)
  • biography in the news (2)
  • books (229)
    • authors (19)
    • book review (167)
    • reading (23)
  • creative nonfiction (9)
  • daily life (2)
  • Daily Prompt (2)
  • death (21)
  • digital humanities (3)
  • fiction (6)
  • film and television biographies (5)
  • film review (48)
  • found objects (3)
  • historical biographies (1)
  • history (20)
  • In the steps of KSP (4)
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard (97)
    • My KSP biography (23)
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard's associates and connections (14)
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard's writings (33)
  • libraries (4)
  • life (20)
  • link (22)
  • links (39)
  • lists (28)
  • local history and heritage (1)
  • media (4)
  • memes and urban myths (1)
  • memoirs (9)
  • meta (2)
  • music (18)
  • news (9)
  • news and events (27)
  • obituary (1)
  • Old writing found on a floppy disk (1)
  • poetry (5)
  • politics and current affairs (24)
    • climate change (1)
  • prologues and introductions (2)
  • psychological aspects of biography (3)
  • quotes (22)
  • R.I.P. (9)
  • reading report (3)
  • religion (1)
  • religious biography (1)
  • research (5)
  • role of the biographer within the biography (2)
  • Series: A-Z of Katharine Susannah Prichard (26)
  • Series: Corona Diary (1)
  • Series: Saturday 10am (14)
  • Series: Short Stories (2016) (6)
  • Series: The Tourist (2013) (6)
  • Series: Thursday 3pm feature posts (2009) (35)
  • structure of biographies (3)
  • technology and the digital world (2)
  • television (3)
  • the nature of biography (4)
  • this blog (10)
  • Uncategorized (31)
  • Western Australia (26)
  • writing (41)

Archives

Recent Comments

Harold Coppock on Wandu, the lost manor in …
Faith Peters on Used tea bags for missionaries…
The Red Witch: A Bio… on Signed copies of The Red Witch…
Seasons Greetings, 2… on An A to Z of Katharine Susanna…

Bookmarks

  • Adventures in Biography
  • ANZ LitLovers LitBlog
  • Bernice Barry
  • It only goes up to your knees
  • Jane Bryony Rawson
  • Jenn Plays Recorder
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre
  • Laura Sewell Matter: Essayist and Biographer
  • Mutually said: Poets Vegan Anarchist Pacifist
  • Resident Judge
  • Speaking Thylacine
  • The Australian Legend
  • Timothy Parkin Poetry
  • Treefall Writing – Melinda Tognini
  • Whispering Gums
  • Wrapped up in books: the home of Guy Salvidge

Top Posts

  • Paul Auster's Moon Palace : an overview
  • Reader's Digest Condensed Books: 'as difficult to dispose of as bins of radioactive waste'
  • [Thursday 3pm #4] The tragedy of Robert Wadlow, world's tallest man?
  • About
  • Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life at the Edge of the World by Michelle Scott Tucker

Blog Stats

  • 161,107 hits

Tag Cloud

9/11 19th century 33 1920s 1921 1930s 1950s 1970s 1971 1981 2000s 2004 2011 2015 2017 20000 Days on Earth A.S. Byatt Aboriginals activism Adam Begley Adrian Mole adultery afterlife Agatha Christie Alan Hollinghurst Alberto Manguel Alfred Deakin Amazing Grace Americana Amy Grant An American Romance Andre Tchaikowsky Andrew McGahan angela myers anne fadiman Anne Rice Arabian Nights archives art arts funding A Serious Man Ash Wednesday ASIO atheism Atonement Australia Australian film Australian literature Australian Short Story Festival autism autobiography autodidact Barbara Vine beach Belle Costa da Greene Bell Jar best best-of Bible Big Issue Bill Callahan biographical ethics biographical quest genre biographies birthday birthdays Black Opal Bleak House Blinky Bill blogging blogs Blue Blades Bodega's Bunch bog Booker book launch booksale Borges Brenda Niall Brian Matthews Brian McLaren Britney Spears Burial Rites Burke and Wills buskers C.S. Lewis C.S. Lewis canon capitalism Carol Shields Carson McCullers Catcher in the Rye Catholicism celebrities Charles Dickens Charlie Kaufman childhood Child of the Hurricane children's books Choir of Gravediggers Christianity Christian writing Christina Stead Christmas Christopher Beha Cinque Terra Claire Tomalin classics cliches climate change Coen brothers coincidence Collie Collyer coming of age Communism concert Condensed Books consumerism Coonardoo Cormac McCarthy Corrections cosy fiction Dara Horn David Copperfield David Ireland David Marr David Suchet death Death of a president definition demolition Dennis LeHane dentist diaries divorce doctorow Doctor Who documentaries donald shriver Don DeLillo Don DeLillo Donna Mazza Donna Tartt Don Watson Dostovesky doubt drama dreams of revolution Drusilla Modjeska E.M. Forster ebooks editing Eichmann Eisenstein Elizabeth Kostova email empathy ensmallification existentialism faith Falling Man fame families fantasy fiction film and television folk football Frank Barscombe Fremantle Press G.K. Chesterton Gabrielle Carey Gallipoli genealogical fiction Genesis Geoff Nicholson George W. Bush Gerald Glaskin Gilead Golden Miles Goldfields Trilogy Graham Greene grandad great novels Greenmount Guinness World Records Guy Salvidge Hannah Arendt Hannah Kent Hans Koning Hans Koningsberger Harper Lee Haxby's Circus Hazel Rowley He-Man headers heaven Heidegger hell Henrietta Lacks Henry Morton Stanley Herman Hesse heroes Hey Dad! historical fiction history Holden Caulfield holidays Homer & Langley Home Song Stories House of Cards house of zealots House of Zealots Hugo Throssell humour Ian McEwan In between the sheets Indonesia Infamous Inside Llewyn Davis interstellar interview Intimate Strangers Invisible Ireland ISBNs Ishiguro itunes J.D. Salinger J.M. Coetzee J.S. Battye Janet Malcolm Jennifer Egan JFK JFK assassination Joanna Rakoff Joel Schumacher John Burbidge John Fowles John Howard John Kinsella John Updike John Updike Jonathan Franzen journal writing JSB Judgment Day Julia Baird Julian Barnes Kafka Kalgoorlie Kate Grenville Katherine Mansfield Kevin Brockmeier King's Park KSP Writers' Centre language last ride Laurie Steed Left Behind Leonard Cohen Leo Tolstoy Libra Library of Babel Library of Babel Lila Lily and Madeleine links lionel shriver Lionel Shriver lists literary fiction literature Lleyton Hewitt lost book Louisa Louisa Lawson Louis Esson louis nowra love letter Lubbock Lytton Strachey Madelaine Dickie Man Booker man in the dark Margaret Atwood Margaret River Press Marilynne Robinson mark sandman meaning of life Melbourne Mel Hall meme memorialisation memory MH17 Michael Faber Mike Riddell Miles Franklin mining boom missionaries moleskine Moon Palace morphine Mother Teresa movies Music of Chance My Brilliant Career names Napoleon Narnia narrative Narrow Road to the Deep North Narziss and Goldmund Natalie Portman Nathaniel Hobbie national anthem Nick Cave Nina Bawden non-fiction nonfiction noughties novelists novels obituaries obscurity On Chesil Beach Parade's End Paris Hilton Passion of the Christ past patriotism Paul Auster Paul de Man Perth Perth Writers Festival Peter Ackroyd Peter Cowan Writers Centre phd Philip K. Dick Philip Seymour Hoffman pierpontmorgan poetry slam politics popular fiction popular science Possession postapocalyptic postmodernism Pride prophetic imagination publications Pulp Purity Queen Victoria Rabbit Angstrom radio Radio National Randolph Stow rating: 5/10 rating: 6/10 rating: 7/10 rating: 8/10 rating: 9/10 rating: 10/10 ratings reading fiction autobiographically reading report Rebecca Skloot recap red wine reincarnation juvenile fiction rejection review - music reviewing rewriting Richard Flanagan Richard Ford Rick Moody Roaring Nineties Robert Banks Robert Hughes Robert Silverberg Robert Wadlow Robinson Crusoe Rolf Harris romance Rome ruins Russell Crowe Ruth Rendell Sarah Murgatroyd scalpers science fiction Science of Sleep secondhand books Secret River sermon illustration sex short stories Silent Woman Simone Lazaroo Simpsons Siri Hustvedt slavery Smashing Pumpkins social interactions social justice some people i hate sources South Australia souvenirs speculation speech speeches sport status anxiety Stephen Lawhead Stranger's Child subtitles Subtle Flame Sue Townsend suicide Surprised By Hope Suzanne Falkiner Sylvia Plath Synecdoche TAG Hungerford Award tapes teabags Ted Hughes The Children Act The Cure The Fur The Imitation Game theology The Pioneers The Revolutionary Thomas Disch Thomas Hardy Thomas Henry Prichard Thomas Mann thriller time Tim La Haye Tim Winton Tolstoy Tom Wright top 10 Towering Inferno Tracy Ryan Trove Truman Capote tshirts TS Spivet Twelve Years a Slave underrated writers Underworld unwritten biographies urban myth USA vampires Venice Victoria Cross Victoriana Victorian era Victorianism Victoria Park video Voltron w Wake in Fright Walkabout Walter M. Miller war War and Peace war on terror Water Diviner Wellington St Bus Station Westerly Western Australia West Wing What Happened to Sophie Wilder? Whitlams wikipedia Wild Oats of Hans William Wilberforce Winston Churchill Witches of Eastwick Working Bullocks workshop World War One writers writing Writing NSW youth Zadie Smith Zeitgeist Zelig

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 269 other subscribers

Pages

  • About
  • My novel: The Fur
  • The Red Witch: A Biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard

Categories

  • academic (9)
  • archives and sources (8)
  • autobiographical (58)
  • biographers (10)
  • biographical method (24)
  • biographical quests (16)
  • biographies (16)
    • political biography (1)
  • biographies of living subjects (2)
  • biographies of writers, artists & musicians (11)
  • biographies of writers, artists and musicians (20)
  • biography as a literary form (8)
  • biography in fiction (2)
  • biography in the news (2)
  • books (229)
    • authors (19)
    • book review (167)
    • reading (23)
  • creative nonfiction (9)
  • daily life (2)
  • Daily Prompt (2)
  • death (21)
  • digital humanities (3)
  • fiction (6)
  • film and television biographies (5)
  • film review (48)
  • found objects (3)
  • historical biographies (1)
  • history (20)
  • In the steps of KSP (4)
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard (97)
    • My KSP biography (23)
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard's associates and connections (14)
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard's writings (33)
  • libraries (4)
  • life (20)
  • link (22)
  • links (39)
  • lists (28)
  • local history and heritage (1)
  • media (4)
  • memes and urban myths (1)
  • memoirs (9)
  • meta (2)
  • music (18)
  • news (9)
  • news and events (27)
  • obituary (1)
  • Old writing found on a floppy disk (1)
  • poetry (5)
  • politics and current affairs (24)
    • climate change (1)
  • prologues and introductions (2)
  • psychological aspects of biography (3)
  • quotes (22)
  • R.I.P. (9)
  • reading report (3)
  • religion (1)
  • religious biography (1)
  • research (5)
  • role of the biographer within the biography (2)
  • Series: A-Z of Katharine Susannah Prichard (26)
  • Series: Corona Diary (1)
  • Series: Saturday 10am (14)
  • Series: Short Stories (2016) (6)
  • Series: The Tourist (2013) (6)
  • Series: Thursday 3pm feature posts (2009) (35)
  • structure of biographies (3)
  • technology and the digital world (2)
  • television (3)
  • the nature of biography (4)
  • this blog (10)
  • Uncategorized (31)
  • Western Australia (26)
  • writing (41)

Archives

Recent Comments

Harold Coppock on Wandu, the lost manor in …
Faith Peters on Used tea bags for missionaries…
The Red Witch: A Bio… on Signed copies of The Red Witch…
Seasons Greetings, 2… on An A to Z of Katharine Susanna…

Bookmarks

  • Adventures in Biography
  • ANZ LitLovers LitBlog
  • Bernice Barry
  • It only goes up to your knees
  • Jane Bryony Rawson
  • Jenn Plays Recorder
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre
  • Laura Sewell Matter: Essayist and Biographer
  • Mutually said: Poets Vegan Anarchist Pacifist
  • Resident Judge
  • Speaking Thylacine
  • The Australian Legend
  • Timothy Parkin Poetry
  • Treefall Writing – Melinda Tognini
  • Whispering Gums
  • Wrapped up in books: the home of Guy Salvidge

Top Posts

  • Paul Auster's Moon Palace : an overview
  • Reader's Digest Condensed Books: 'as difficult to dispose of as bins of radioactive waste'
  • [Thursday 3pm #4] The tragedy of Robert Wadlow, world's tallest man?
  • About
  • Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life at the Edge of the World by Michelle Scott Tucker

Blog Stats

  • 161,107 hits

Tag Cloud

9/11 19th century 33 1920s 1921 1930s 1950s 1970s 1971 1981 2000s 2004 2011 2015 2017 20000 Days on Earth A.S. Byatt Aboriginals activism Adam Begley Adrian Mole adultery afterlife Agatha Christie Alan Hollinghurst Alberto Manguel Alfred Deakin Amazing Grace Americana Amy Grant An American Romance Andre Tchaikowsky Andrew McGahan angela myers anne fadiman Anne Rice Arabian Nights archives art arts funding A Serious Man Ash Wednesday ASIO atheism Atonement Australia Australian film Australian literature Australian Short Story Festival autism autobiography autodidact Barbara Vine beach Belle Costa da Greene Bell Jar best best-of Bible Big Issue Bill Callahan biographical ethics biographical quest genre biographies birthday birthdays Black Opal Bleak House Blinky Bill blogging blogs Blue Blades Bodega's Bunch bog Booker book launch booksale Borges Brenda Niall Brian Matthews Brian McLaren Britney Spears Burial Rites Burke and Wills buskers C.S. Lewis C.S. Lewis canon capitalism Carol Shields Carson McCullers Catcher in the Rye Catholicism celebrities Charles Dickens Charlie Kaufman childhood Child of the Hurricane children's books Choir of Gravediggers Christianity Christian writing Christina Stead Christmas Christopher Beha Cinque Terra Claire Tomalin classics cliches climate change Coen brothers coincidence Collie Collyer coming of age Communism concert Condensed Books consumerism Coonardoo Cormac McCarthy Corrections cosy fiction Dara Horn David Copperfield David Ireland David Marr David Suchet death Death of a president definition demolition Dennis LeHane dentist diaries divorce doctorow Doctor Who documentaries donald shriver Don DeLillo Don DeLillo Donna Mazza Donna Tartt Don Watson Dostovesky doubt drama dreams of revolution Drusilla Modjeska E.M. Forster ebooks editing Eichmann Eisenstein Elizabeth Kostova email empathy ensmallification existentialism faith Falling Man fame families fantasy fiction film and television folk football Frank Barscombe Fremantle Press G.K. Chesterton Gabrielle Carey Gallipoli genealogical fiction Genesis Geoff Nicholson George W. Bush Gerald Glaskin Gilead Golden Miles Goldfields Trilogy Graham Greene grandad great novels Greenmount Guinness World Records Guy Salvidge Hannah Arendt Hannah Kent Hans Koning Hans Koningsberger Harper Lee Haxby's Circus Hazel Rowley He-Man headers heaven Heidegger hell Henrietta Lacks Henry Morton Stanley Herman Hesse heroes Hey Dad! historical fiction history Holden Caulfield holidays Homer & Langley Home Song Stories House of Cards house of zealots House of Zealots Hugo Throssell humour Ian McEwan In between the sheets Indonesia Infamous Inside Llewyn Davis interstellar interview Intimate Strangers Invisible Ireland ISBNs Ishiguro itunes J.D. Salinger J.M. Coetzee J.S. Battye Janet Malcolm Jennifer Egan JFK JFK assassination Joanna Rakoff Joel Schumacher John Burbidge John Fowles John Howard John Kinsella John Updike John Updike Jonathan Franzen journal writing JSB Judgment Day Julia Baird Julian Barnes Kafka Kalgoorlie Kate Grenville Katherine Mansfield Kevin Brockmeier King's Park KSP Writers' Centre language last ride Laurie Steed Left Behind Leonard Cohen Leo Tolstoy Libra Library of Babel Library of Babel Lila Lily and Madeleine links lionel shriver Lionel Shriver lists literary fiction literature Lleyton Hewitt lost book Louisa Louisa Lawson Louis Esson louis nowra love letter Lubbock Lytton Strachey Madelaine Dickie Man Booker man in the dark Margaret Atwood Margaret River Press Marilynne Robinson mark sandman meaning of life Melbourne Mel Hall meme memorialisation memory MH17 Michael Faber Mike Riddell Miles Franklin mining boom missionaries moleskine Moon Palace morphine Mother Teresa movies Music of Chance My Brilliant Career names Napoleon Narnia narrative Narrow Road to the Deep North Narziss and Goldmund Natalie Portman Nathaniel Hobbie national anthem Nick Cave Nina Bawden non-fiction nonfiction noughties novelists novels obituaries obscurity On Chesil Beach Parade's End Paris Hilton Passion of the Christ past patriotism Paul Auster Paul de Man Perth Perth Writers Festival Peter Ackroyd Peter Cowan Writers Centre phd Philip K. Dick Philip Seymour Hoffman pierpontmorgan poetry slam politics popular fiction popular science Possession postapocalyptic postmodernism Pride prophetic imagination publications Pulp Purity Queen Victoria Rabbit Angstrom radio Radio National Randolph Stow rating: 5/10 rating: 6/10 rating: 7/10 rating: 8/10 rating: 9/10 rating: 10/10 ratings reading fiction autobiographically reading report Rebecca Skloot recap red wine reincarnation juvenile fiction rejection review - music reviewing rewriting Richard Flanagan Richard Ford Rick Moody Roaring Nineties Robert Banks Robert Hughes Robert Silverberg Robert Wadlow Robinson Crusoe Rolf Harris romance Rome ruins Russell Crowe Ruth Rendell Sarah Murgatroyd scalpers science fiction Science of Sleep secondhand books Secret River sermon illustration sex short stories Silent Woman Simone Lazaroo Simpsons Siri Hustvedt slavery Smashing Pumpkins social interactions social justice some people i hate sources South Australia souvenirs speculation speech speeches sport status anxiety Stephen Lawhead Stranger's Child subtitles Subtle Flame Sue Townsend suicide Surprised By Hope Suzanne Falkiner Sylvia Plath Synecdoche TAG Hungerford Award tapes teabags Ted Hughes The Children Act The Cure The Fur The Imitation Game theology The Pioneers The Revolutionary Thomas Disch Thomas Hardy Thomas Henry Prichard Thomas Mann thriller time Tim La Haye Tim Winton Tolstoy Tom Wright top 10 Towering Inferno Tracy Ryan Trove Truman Capote tshirts TS Spivet Twelve Years a Slave underrated writers Underworld unwritten biographies urban myth USA vampires Venice Victoria Cross Victoriana Victorian era Victorianism Victoria Park video Voltron w Wake in Fright Walkabout Walter M. Miller war War and Peace war on terror Water Diviner Wellington St Bus Station Westerly Western Australia West Wing What Happened to Sophie Wilder? Whitlams wikipedia Wild Oats of Hans William Wilberforce Winston Churchill Witches of Eastwick Working Bullocks workshop World War One writers writing Writing NSW youth Zadie Smith Zeitgeist Zelig

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth
    • Join 269 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Nathan Hobby, a biographer in Perth
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...