The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 46

12 GREEN GUIDE 27 APRIL 1995 27 APRIL 1995 GREEN GUIDE 13 HERE is one big question hanging over tomorrow envelopes please ences. And, while Seven's nightlv The readers of TV Week have had their say, now it's our turn. Ross Warneke has studied the Logie is his guide to TVs night of frights. soapie Home Away hardly sets the ratings alight, its resident starlet uic ociica crippled-teenager-cum-unmarried-T mother-xiim-newlywed) might for The Footy Show. But let's face facts t- it rates well in Melbourne, but nowhere else.

Without doubt, Nine's overage of the three games in last year's rugby league State-of-Origin competition should win, having grabbed unprecedented first, second and third platings in the top 100 shows on -TV around the nation last' year. Ten's coverage of the Commonwealth Games was mediocre. cxptxi suuu suppon. jjisi year she-' was voted Most Popular New Talent. The unknown here is Gary Sweet, who A got the Sofie Formica treatment last year.

Every time he went outdoors, he made It into the fan maex. And. mi; cially, news of his engagement came, at about the same time as the release HI tllll I noiAimlintrPniinnnfl 'v -V magazine publishes nomination forms and submit multiple votes supporting their own personalities. But there are. more subtle influences at work, too.

Network publicists vie for space in TV Week to promote their shows and their personalities all year round. The key time, however, is the weeks before and during the Logies voting period. This year, Channel 7 did well, with numerous picture stories about Blue Heelers, the series about country cops. Sure enough, Blue Heelers has nominations in tour key categories -Most Popular Series, Actor, Actress and New Talent. Not that it does not deserve them-.

But can we take the final voting results seriously when they may reflect little more than who got their pictures in the magazine more than anyone else? whose' debut performance as Shirl Hennessey in Janus was outstanding? Aaron u. Blabey iin Harvey McHugh deserved a nomination, too. MOST POPULAR PUBLIC AFFAIRS PROGRAM NomineesrA Current Affair, 60 Minutes, The 7.30 Report (1994: Real Life) AFTER last year, when Stan Grant's soon-to-be-axed, utterly dead in the ratings Real Life, got up and won, anything is possible. But this year, it must be out of the two Channel 9 shows. The 7.30 Report, despite some problems last year, deserves to win because it is the only one of the three that consistently stays in touch with the news.

But -this is a popularity poll, not a test of quality. 4 MOST POPULAR SPORTS PROGRAM Nominees: Commonwealth Games, -v The Footy Show, Rugby League State-of-Origin (1994: AFL Grand Final) PAROCHIALISM dictates- that we opt but showed more brilliance and inventiveness than Hey, Hey. Mother and Son is past its prime. MOST POPULAR LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT PERSONALITY Nominees: Andrew Denton, Larry Emdur, Daryl Somers (1994: Ray Martin) DARYL SOMERS is favorite for this one. But Andrew Denton deserves it.

MOST POPULAR i 0 i71 televise them), the Logies cost a small fortune to stage. But at the end of the night, what do they mean? They might give the circulation of TV Week a boost and Channel 7 some good ratings. But do they matter? Can we take them seriously? For those planning to endure it all, here are the TV Week readers' nominations for tomorrow night's awards (with last year's winners in brackets, in case you have forgotten), along with the awards we would like to see. GOLD LOGIE Ray Martin; Daryl Somers; Gary Sweet; Melissa George. (1994: Ray Martin) RAY MARTIN should be red-hot favorite for this award.

Everything he does, even those boring Good Blokes and Spunky Sheilas interview specials, tops the ratings. His almost Uni-. versal appeal cannot be denied. But the youth of the TV Week readership might sway votes towards Daryl Somers, whose weekly Hey, Hey, It's Saturday and occasional Hey, Hey specials continue to draw huge audi nights Jth Logie Awards. Will Sofie Formica, the latest Aussie envoy to the global entertainment industry, the newest talent from Down Under to take America by storm, return from Tinseltown to grace the Melbourne Concert Hall of the Victorian Arts Centre with her multi-talented presence? Sofie who? You're kidding.

She is a genuine, gold-plated Aussie starlet. For her not to attend tomorrow night's TV night of nights would be a tragedy. Why import Big Bird or TV's latest Superman to hand out statuettes when Sofie is the one we really want to see? Sofie who? Well, in between extended visits to the US, where she is even to guest-star in Melrose Place -1 read it in TV Week, so it must be true -Sofie, who began years ago as one of those clear-skinned, ever-smiling teenage hosts of Channel 7's Saturday Disney, co-hosts Channel 9's cere-brally challenging Candid Camera clone, Just Kidding one of the ratings phenomena of 1994. Cynics might ask what came first the success or the publicity. And how much of the latter can be believed, anyway? Let's tace it, in many cases, stars are manufactured, wheeled off a big production line operated by the I networks, talent agents and magazines like TV Week.

Their every move is the stuff of headlines like "Rebecca's Day of "Kylie's Brush With Death" and "Shane's Horror But Sofie is a genuine To her credit, she has steadfastly avoided having a "brush with No, she only allows the facts to be reported, the facts about her 'love'' life, her marriage, major showbiz contracts and her uncertainty, twisted by those same cynics into a suggestion that she may have got too big-headed, about whether to ever return to Australia now that rr--nl -i if It 111 I n. I IS a grand night For TV Week and, this year, Channel 7 (the com mercial networks take it in turns to THE Logies, and the hype machine that fuels them, are like that here tomorrow, forgotten by Monday. If this year's awards ceremony (televised by Seven tomorrow at 8.30pm), are like the others, the major talking points next week will be who monstered whom at the notorious after-Logies parties and who was hung over on Saturday, The awards themselves hardly matter. It's a big party and little else. In fact, the two people most deserving of awards IUII1U11UW lllglll Will home empty-handed.

They (yes, another Daddo!) and Noni Hazelhurst, the poor fools who stuck their hands up for the most perilous and thankless task in television. No matter how well they hold the show together, it's likely most people will say "Bert would have done it It happens every year. ine glory days ot tne Loeies are gone. Last year's ceremony was kvatched by fewer Melbourne viewers than even one ot Channel 9 tele casts of Rugby League State-of- i (Jngin tootbau. in a town where I Aussie Rules is king, that is a tes- timony to their irrelevance.

But it was little wonder, voted on by readers of a magazine with a dwindling circulation and, perhaps more importantly, a group of viewers whose interests, according to. the nominations they submit to 1 Week, rarely extend beyond teen soapies, tabloid current attairs shows, police series and gag-fests such as Hey, Hey, the Logies are not representative of very much at all these days, if they ever were. Further, it's often alleged and I have never seen it denied that the networks buy up copies of TVWeek in the six weeks each year when the 1 1 MOST POPULAR LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAM nominees: Hey, Hey, It's Saturday, Just Kidding, Man Man 1994: Hey, Hey, It's Saturday) HEY, HEY is our tip, mainly because when the voting was conducted earlier this year, Man Man was long" gone from our screens, and Just Kidding was failing to match its ratings-performance of '94. But we would have picked Denton. MOST POPULAR COMEDY PERSONALITY Nominees: Russell Gilbert Daryl Somers, Magda Szubanski (1994: Ruth Cracknell) HANDS up all, those people, other man ins uimiiy ana tne puDlicity statt at Channel 9, who voted for Russell Gilbert Anyway, we would have voted for Magda, Jimeoin, Full Frontal's Eric Bana or Frontline Rob Sitch i MOST POPULAR W1U1.U1 rnuuiuUM Nominees: Full Frontat, Hey, Hey, It's Saturday, Mother And Son UU94: lie Late Show) THE bie mystery of this year's Lories is: What happened to Frontline? The most likely answer is that the sorts of npnnlf Wnn WHtrhaH it- Ont.nnt TO Week subscribers.

Our vote would have gone to Full Frontal. It was patchy in '94, $2195 rrp tax I jtf 1 MOST POPULAR DRAMA1. Nominees: The Battlers, Heartland, Janus (1994: Police Rescue) 1 THERE is no question if Janus does tint Win thie tho malarB TW 1A)-Anl, i ivuulij VI, i TVCCJk should be forced to surrender their, remote controls. But don't be sur- i piueu oeveus eminently lorgettable miniseries, The Battlers, wins. It had more, than one-and-a-half million viewers nationwide, a figure its two xivals on the ABC could pnly dream of.

MOST POPULAR SERIES wriii iin jriMf From Snowy River, Blue Heelers! Home and Away i NOT much doubt here if Melnournes ratings are any guide, Blue Heelers should win this popularity vote. MOST POPULAR NEW TALENT Nominees: Daniel Amalm, Isla Fisher, Lisa McCune (1994: Melissa George) FORGET the rest Lisa McCune really deserves to win this three-wav race. 7 i dui wnere is tne most impressive uewuuiuer ui me ruuiene lerry-ueitz, A SILVER LOGIE -MUSI KUrULAKAlIUK Nominees: Dieter Brummer, Gary Sweet, John Wood nary sweet) OF THE nominees. Tnhn WnnA (mm Blue Heelers is the best by far. But these are "popular" votes', and "most I so teen heart-throb Brummer (Melissa George's teenage nuDoy, Miane.

in Home Away) or Sweet must have good chances. If the award went to the best as dis-' tmct trom most popular we reckon Wood would be fighting it out with Chris HavwnnH rrfip Hmnpccw fami ly's lawyer Michael Kidd in Janus), or Aaron Blabey (Harvey in The SILVER LOGIE -MUM FUPULAK ACTRESS Nominees: Melissa George, Lisa 1 Hensley, Lisa McCune (1994: Sonia Todd) OUR TIP 1c I lea Mrfnn trn UIUC Heelers, if only because she recently has received even more publicity than ouiic. uui wiuie midline impresses in her role as policewoman Maggie the better actress is Lisa Hensley, who played the young country lawyer in Nine's under-rated Law of the Land. Vmm. if i .1 she is such a success in America.

No, if anyone deserves a Logie, it is Sofie. We would suggest a special one-off award for' the star who has most avoided trifling publicity' since that other Sophie, Sophie Lee, made unknown American rabbit Bugs Bunny famous. Sophie who? BRAND 486SX-33 MHz 4 Mb RAM Upgradable 120 Mb Hard Disk Drive 64 Grey Scale LCD save up to $15GGonrrp With ToiMbt 3 Year Limited Wimnty '-r II' sit z. I 4 I i i -ax M' I I I if jp .7 a iu MP ft TZ3j ill A -V'v i CHILDREN'S PROGRAM Nominees: Agro's Cartoon Connection. A'mazine.

Totallv Wild (1994: Agro's Cartoon Connection) ANOTHER mystery! What happened to Blinky Bill on Two or Half Way Across The Galaxy And Turn Left on were undoubtedly the finest kids' shows last year. Sadly, Agro's daily advertising marathon on, Seven is the likely winner of this cate-' gory. MOST POPULAR LIFESTYLEINFORMATION PROGRAM Nominees: Burke's Backyard, Getaway, The Great Outdoors t-iajw: ounces AND yet another mysterjj, Where are "tJur House, Looking Good and Money, the best and most watched lifestyle information programs on TV nationwide last year by a big margin? This category, more than any other, makes the Logies look stupid. By the way, Burke's Backyard has won this award every year since Its inception in 1990. All Simm Module 1 mb (30 pin) 4 mb (30 pin).

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