Television
See also: List of Australian Football League television showsAustralian rules has a long history with television which dates back to the first live broadcast of a match in 1957. Several popular Australian television shows have celebrated the sport, some of the more popular current ones include The Footy Show and Before The Game. The 2002 television show The Club, featuring amateur club the "Hammerheads" was one of the first reality television shows in the world in the sports genre. The game has made the occasional appearance on the Australian soap opera Neighbours, which is popular around the world. In 2008, several scenes from the opening credits show characters holding and playing with a Sherrin ball. The show features several characters having favourite AFL clubs, watching and playing 'footy'. In 2008, an episode of City Homicide portrayed a fictional team called the "South City Kookas" with a green and white striped guernsey and based at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (based loosely around Collingwood) featuring former Neighbours star and suburban footballer Blair McDonough. The first hand-written rules of Australian football—originally known as "The rules of the Melbourne Football Club - May 1859"—are one of 10 National Heritage-listed items featured in the 2009 documentary series Australia's Heritage: National Treasures, hosted by The Chaser's Chris Taylor.
The game has also been cameod by non-supporters and those in places where the game is less popular. In Sydney based television shows where the subject of the game is sometimes used for light comedy. In an episode of Kingswood Country Ted Bulpitt, a rugby fan, describes a match on television as a "bunch of pansies skipping around in their sister's shorts" and "bloody stupid game that will never catch on" and Packed to the Rafters, Dave and Julie Rafter are fans of the Sydney Swans, however in season 3 Jake Barton a rugby fan describes the game as a "pansy sport". Comedians and soccer fan Jimeon, jokes that Australian rules football is "The only sport in the world where they reward you for missing "
Read more about this topic: Australian Rules Football In Australian Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“All television ever did was shrink the demand for ordinary movies. The demand for extraordinary movies increased. If any one thing is wrong with the movie industry today, it is the unrelenting effort to astonish.”
—Clive James (b. 1939)
“It is among the ranks of school-age children, those six- to twelve-year-olds who once avidly filled their free moments with childhood play, that the greatest change is evident. In the place of traditional, sometimes ancient childhood games that were still popular a generation ago, in the place of fantasy and make- believe play . . . today’s children have substituted television viewing and, most recently, video games.”
—Marie Winn (20th century)
“There is no question but that if Jesus Christ, or a great prophet from another religion, were to come back today, he would find it virtually impossible to convince anyone of his credentials ... despite the fact that the vast evangelical machine on American television is predicated on His imminent return among us sinners.”
—Peter Ustinov (b. 1921)