The South Coast News
One of the show's most popular scripted segments was "The South Coast News", a parody news bulletin read by real-life journalist and TV presenter Paul Murphy. It ran for several years in the late 1980s and early 1990s and two volumes of scripts were later published in book form, with illustrations by cartoonist Bill Leak, who had an enduring relationship with the duo.
The basic conceit of the sketch was that the small New South Wales south coast town of Ulladulla was heavily populated by famous Australian sporting and show business identities, that many of these celebrities owned businesses in the area or worked in various official capacities in the town, and that all were regularly involved in hilarious and often ribald misadventures.
Prominent recurring characters included the town's mayor, renowned TV composer and conductor Tommy Tycho, former TV wrestler Mario Milano, owner of the Bluebird Cafe, and former NSW Premier Barry Unsworth, owner of the disreputable 'Cardigan Club'. This fictional Ulladulla also boasted a colossal statue of long-distance swimmer Linda McGill ("The Big Linda", which stood astride the entrance to the boat harbour and featured a revolving restaurant in its head). All the streets were named after sporting or TV stars, and the local high school was named after rugby league player (Barry Beath).
Read more about this topic: This Sporting Life (radio Program)
Famous quotes containing the words south, coast and/or news:
“If you are one of the hewers of wood and drawers of small weekly paychecks, your letters will have to contain some few items of news or they will be accounted dry stuff.... But if you happen to be of a literary turn of mind, or are, in any way, likely to become famous, you may settle down to an afternoon of letter-writing on nothing more sprightly in the way of news than the shifting of the wind from south to south-east.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“Have we even so much as discovered and settled the shores? Let a man travel on foot along the coast ... and tell me if it looks like a discovered and settled country, and not rather, for the most part, like a desolate island, and No-Man’s Land.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is speckled with grime as if
Small print overspread it,
The news of a day I’ve forgotten
If I ever read it.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)