Fred Dagg show coming

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33883, 1 July 1975, Page 4

Fred Dagg show coming

< By

KEN COATES)

“Fred Dagg fans are in for a treat. Television One has completed a Fred Dagg Show pilot programme and is mighty pleased with it. TVI executives are not| saying much more than this! at present. They do notj want to ruin the show’s' chances of success with overexposure for John Clarke, i who created Dagg, or by an artificial build-up. “For obvious reasons we are not divulging one way or the other whether it is good, bad or indifferent,” said Mr Chris. Bourn, head of presentations, publicity and promotion. “There is, in a sense, a campaign to ensure we control the publicity about John Clarke When Mr Bourn received I his new appointment, the I production was handed over ito Tony Hiles who has taken I the basic format and done it his way. Chris Bourn points out that John Clarke is one of the few personalities to be developed in New Zealand television where there has been no pushing. “The public has made itj happen, and this is rare,” he, said. “We are not doing thej big publicity build-up because’ it is happening without usi doing it. “We are not saying anything about the pilot at this! stage other than it has been' completed and there are a few people around with smiles on their faces.” Under contract I Mr Bourn said currently | John Clarke was. under contract to TVI and "Tonight at Nine.”

i This contract is for him to ; make his appearances and his observations about the 'news of the day,” he ! explained. “John is also involved in advertisements, but 1 don’t know that this will continue for much longer. “There is the question of over-exposure. The contractural terms we have with John give us most of the say, and we are having, to control to some extent ■ just how much he is being, seen.” John Clarke is receiving, two or three commercial over-| tures a day, according to Mt i Bourn.

“Today a major printing firm wanted to do a cartoon. There is also a recording company trying very hard to put out an L.P. with him. “Funnily enough,” added Mr Bourn, “there is a record out doing extremely well which Brian Edwards and John Clarke did years ago, and which hardly anyone had heard. “Now that both are nationally known again, it is the biggest seller that this company has.” The record was made during a live performance of “The Brian Edwards Travelling Road Show.” “This is where John Clarke first devloped the Fred Dagg character, and it is actually on the record.” Mr Bourn said. “Fred Dagg comes on and wants to get a film team un to Eketahuna into a paddock which it littered with dead sheep. “He wanted them filmed because Reida Familton was in the film team, and he wanted to see her in the flesh. “Reida never fronted up, and it was very sad. in spite of the fact Fred had killed all the sheep to get her up there.” Two years ago John Clarke was working for the N.Z.B.C. as a programme officer in Wellington. And according to Chris Bourn he destroyed the section in which he worked—“there would be no other word for it.”

“John Clarke shuffling pieces of paper from desk to desk, and noting down things which had been played, and what the key number of films were—you can imagine what interest he had. “So he set out. probably; consciously, to destroy the section, which he did.” ! Full time aetor John Clarke left the section' and decided on university. “That was not in his line either, although he did take' part in a few university re-, views. He became a full time' actor.” Although he does the Fred !Dagg character so well. John Clarke does not have a rural' !background. He comes from! Palmerston North. There are a number of farmers up and down the country who do not like Dagg, but that does notl

worry TVI too much. It takes the view that even if they don’t like him, they still i watch. The reasons why some farmers cannot stomach him. is that Fred Dagg is too close 'to the bone, too accurate. “But for the few that don t i like him, I would say F red Dagg is the best known perisonality in the country. ' TVI is obviously looking forward to screening the ■first of its “Fred Dagg 'Show,” but will not indicate 'when this will be. i Mr Bourn said the following would be a cult audience. “There are people who are going to say: ’That’D be the door' up and down the ! country. . “There will be others who will loathe it—like the Monty Python Show which has become a cult, and became Isuccessful because of this.”