The Big Gig

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Comedy
English     8     2014     AU

Overview

The Big Gig was a popular Australian TV comedy series from 1989-92 originally named Tuesday Night Live and based on the British TV series Saturday Live. It was broadcast by the ABC and was produced and directed by Ted Robinson, who started his career as the director of the second series of the acclaimed The Aunty Jack Show in the early 1970s and Neil Wilson who has worked for more than a decade throughout Asia and recently was consultant Producer and Director of Dancing with the Stars in Mumbai, India. Largely based around performers sourced from the thriving Melbourne stand-up comedy scene of that time, the series brought a number of new comedy acts to national prominence and made major stars of its host, stand-up comedian Wendy Harmer, who later became a top-rating host on morning radio in Sydney in the 1990s, and the regularly featured act, The Doug Anthony All-Stars.

Similar

The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised on CBS between October 3, 1960 and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays the widowed sheriff of the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina. His life is complicated by an inept, but well-meaning deputy, Barney Fife, a spinster aunt and housekeeper, Aunt Bee, and a precocious young son, Opie. Local ne'er-do-wells, bumbling pals, and temperamental girlfriends further complicate his life. Andy Griffith stated in a Today Show interview, with respect to the time period of the show: "Well, though we never said it, and though it was shot in the '60s, it had a feeling of the '30s. It was when we were doing it, of a time gone by." The series never placed lower than seventh in the Nielsen ratings and ended its final season at number one. It has been ranked by TV Guide as the 9th-best show in American television history. Though neither Griffith nor the show won awards during its eight-season run, series co-stars Knotts and Bavier accumulated a combined total of six Emmy Awards. The show, a semi-spin-off from an episode of The Danny Thomas Show titled "Danny Meets Andy Griffith", spawned its own spin-off series, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., a sequel series, Mayberry R.F.D., and a reunion telemovie, Return to Mayberry. The show's enduring popularity has generated a good deal of show-related merchandise. Reruns currently air on TV Land, and the complete series is available on DVD. All eight seasons are also now available by streaming video services such as Netflix.

More info
The Andy Griffith Show
1960