Vale Gra-Gra

Today my all-time TV hero Graham Kennedy passed away at age 71. Considering he did little TV in my lifetime - in the late '80s he hosted The Graham Kennedy News Show/Coast To Coast for three years, and then the first season of Funniest Home Videos - it's perhaps odd that he has had such an impact on me. But for whatever reason I remember being entranced by what I saw of him, much of it in compilation programs, since a young age. Whenever there was an excursion at school coming up, I would always beg that we go to the Film & Sound Archives so that I could watch Graham tapes, and would again beg to go in the holidays to see more. So through the years I have managed to watch quite a lot of his work and read endless amounts about him.
I can't tell you how much I have learnt from him about TV, about comedy, about writing, but he's somebody I seem to always go back to in my mind when I'm writing, and I believe he truly was a genius of the artform in a way that perhaps only Bert Newton is (still) today. He had a way of using the camera like it was an extension of his personality - which probably sounds a very strange thing if you haven't seen him in action.
Luckily Nine recently release a DVD of some of his best work, and there are also the great films he made including Don's Party, The Odd Angry Shot and The Club. Hopefully TV1 will start repeating the hilarious Blankety Blanks again, too.
The fact that we share a birthday will also always be a very special thing to me. I was born on the day he turned 45.
Needless to say that I have a few tears and a few Crownies in his honour today.
Bert, who of course appeared alongside Graham in In Melbourne Tonight for many years as well as The Graham Kennedy Show appeared on Ten News this morning to talk about his friend (and best man at his wedding to Patti).

Bert and Graham on IMT
"For us here in Australia, he was The King," Bert said. "And I was very happy for a long time to be his crown prince. It's a very sad day for a lot of people, no one more than me."
A sad day indeed.
Farewell Graham. Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrkkkkk I'll miss ya.