Blue Heelers - Overview

Overview

Blue Heelers was produced by Southern Star for the Seven Network. As well as "everyday" policing matters, the series dealt with many controversial and "touchy" subjects. The series was also the first to examine the stressful world of young police officers who are invariably "thrown into the deep end where they are left to sink or swim". During its 13-season run it won a total of 32 awards and was nominated for a further 50. This included 25 Logie Awards, five of which were the Gold Logie, the most coveted television award in Australia. Blue Heelers first aired on 10 September 1993 with the episode "A Woman's Place", and last aired on 4 June 2006 with its 510th episode "One Day More".

It was Australia's most popular television drama, drawing more than 2.5 million viewers every week at its peak. It jointly (with Homicide) holds the Australian record for most episodes produced of a weekly prime time drama. It was also almost the longest-running series, however, Homicide lasted one calendar month longer and, due to five feature-length episodes, had more actual on-air time across the 510 episodes.

Blue Heelers also gained recognition worldwide, particularly in the UK, Ireland, New Zealand and Canada, where it had a strong following in syndication. Worldwide, Blue Heelers has been sold to 108 territories.

Blue Heelers launched the careers of many Australian actors such as Lisa McCune, Grant Bowler, Ditch Davey, Rachel Gordon, Tasma Walton, Charlie Clausen and Jane Allsop. While many of these actors are still best known for their character on Blue Heelers, some have gone on to bigger roles. Many major actors of today also called Mount Thomas home, including Hugh Jackman, Charles 'Bud' Tingwell, Peter O'Brien and John Howard. Blue Heelers veterans actors John Wood and Julie Nihill remained with Blue Heelers during its entire 12 year run, portraying Senior Sergeant Tom Croydon and publican, Chris Riley respectively (although Croydon is the only character to appear in every single episode of the run).