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After a shaky start his show Good News Week, became one of the ABC's top raters. Then this year the triumphant announcement that Channel 10 had lured the team to commercial television.
The outrage from fans was tangible - Green Guide's letters pages were filled with disenchanted viewers who felt betrayed by the move.
Nevertheless, on Sunday, the GNW team of Robins, Paul McDermott and Julie McCrossin will make their debut in the glare of the commercial spotlight.
"I am very, very scared. I'm scared and excited. I haven't been this scared and excited since I started radio," says Robins.
Accusations of ''selling out" are rife, but Robins laughs off the taunts.
"If I had wanted to be rich, I would have taken one of the commercial radio offers that have been coming round for the past few years."
Both Robins and executive producer Ted Robinson (who has been with GNW since the beginning), are keen to explain their motivation for the move, which centre around giving untried talent a chance to shine.
"We've been there (at the ABC) for three years; we would have been denying those who didn't have a show yet the chance to have one. If we had stayed, we would have been doing nore harm than good," says Robins.
Another carrot dangled before the team was the opportunity to produce another program, based on the Good News Weekend series trialled by the ABC last year while Roy and H.G. were overseas. It will be a trivia-based variety show with live music and old friends Flacco and Sandman.
But most of all, the decision was promoted by the need for a challenge. The cast felt they were in danger of becoming stale.
"There is a time where you should move on becuase if you don't, you start to repeat yourself,'' says Robinson. "Going into the fourth year at the ABC without any new challenges, we would have gone mad. The move is a way of re-inventing ourselves.
Robinson quickly rebuts suggestions that the show will become ratings-driven on its new network.
"Part of the reason we went with 10 is we looked at how they had treated The Panel, in supporting it and allowing it to grow and find its feet, and the fact that they don't interfere editorially.
They say, 'OK guys here's the keys for the 'car' take it for a spin and try to bring it back without too many bingles'."
"We have as much artistic freedom at Channel 10 as we did at the ABC, perhaps even more at Ten. We can be even crueller about the Government without getting messages from on high," says Robins. He is disappointed by fans who say they won't watch when it's on Channel 10.
"If you like a program, if you like the people who make the program, what does it matter what network it's on?"
But Robinson is more diplomatic: "There are people who are passionately loyal to the ABC and their TV sets are virtually welded to the channel. A lot of those viewers will find it very difficult to follow us and deal with commercials and we're very sorry to say goodbye to them, but also a lot will come with us and hopefully we'll make some new friends."
Though GNW will be filmed in Sydney, the team will record at least six shows at the Melbourne Comedy Festival and plans are under way for more Melbourne visits later in the year.
GNW is in a horror timeslot, 7.30 Sunday nights, pitted against the Sixty Minutes juggernaut, Home Improvement, 3rd Rock From the Sun and Ballykissangel. But the challenge is something Ted Robinson is hoping they will rise to.
"It's tough, but that's what's exciting. In a funny sort of perverse way, and we may, in a few weeks be very sorry, we wanted to do something to put a bit of adrenaline back into the bloodstream, to make us wake up in a panic in the middle of the night, and this did all those things," said Robinson.
"It's a real challenge to take the program out to a big audience in a big time slot and try and make it work.
Says Robins: "It's good to be scared again."
Excited is possibly an understatement to describe Mikey Robins, Good News Week's senior team leader, as he readies himself for mainstream TV. His condition is more like nervous terror.
He says the prospect of a far wider audience for the quirky, irreverent game show has caused him to spend more time glancing in the mirror.
Last year, his already ample frame blew out somewhat further, particularly after he quit breakfast radio (Triple J) after seven years and rediscovered going out to dinner. Throw in Christmas and Robins' famous waistcoat and suit were going to need the seams restitched before he frocked up for a 1999 TV season.
So, he has taken on a personal trainer, which, in itself, is a statement about encompassing trendiness. (He would be horrified to read this.)
But there, he is, he admits, having his "fat arse dragged around (the Sydney beachside suburb of) Bronte" by a female trainer.
Is he running?
That trademark throaty laugh roars, down the phone.
"The Earth's core is not strong enough to take that," he says. No, they are power walking.
"If I can get back to the shape I was a couple of years ago (two suit sizes smaller), I'll be happy."
In truth, of course, Robins is a funny, entertaining man whatever shape he is in.
Originally from Newcastle, he received his show business grounding working as a clown at kids' parties while at university. He says it was to pay the rent but, in reality, he was an academic "under-achiever", and playing the clown was a natural gift.
He even did a small stint in a post punk fusion band, before heading to Sydney to join the Castanet Club.
The right introductions saw him writing gags for a couple of likely lads on Seven, henceforth known as Jonno and Danno.
The writing led to performing in some sketch work, on the show and this led to breakfast radio, partnering comedienne Helen Razer on the ABC's then fledgling youth radio network, Triple J.
Razer quit after five years and, for a time thereafter, Robins was joined by a fellow named Paul McDermott, ex Doug Anthony All Stars. So began a friendship and partnership that still extends to the occasional late carousing.
But before the duo found themselves on GNW Robbins' TV career was launched by that other legendary Sydney prankster and wit, Elle McFeast.
Robins was a panelist on her Live & Sweaty and later on McFeast, its more political hybrid.
Finally, Good News Week was born, with McDermott an inspired choice for host and Robbins as his sidekick. Other team leader Julie McCrossin joined six motnths later.
"After only six episodes the critics said we were goners," Robbins says. "In fact, the first publicity we got said we were axed."
They did, however, receive the first of two reprieves from the ABC, and by the third year the commercial networks were ringing - "men wearing expensive watches," Robbins says.
This week the fruits of those endeavors are put to the test up against Nine's ratings dinosaur 60 minutes, Seven's Third Rock From The Sun and the ABC's excellent drama series Ballykissangel.
The new commercial version of Good News Week will certainly be looking for a wider spread of the younger audience.
"We've got some new, digital games, the show's twice as long, and the new set is nice and shiny," Robins says.
But we'll soon grub it up!"
Robins' nemesis, fellow team captain McCrossin, is, on the other hand, fair dinkum exited about moving to commercial television.
She believes Good News Week has built up a huge level of affection with the public. The trick now, she says, is to bring them across to Ten.
"We are feeling the challenge to rate," she admits. "Personally, I feel like I'm going to a new planet where I don't quite know the language or the ropes."
McCrossin sort of fell into her Job as the third host of the Good News Week team.
As a well-known Sydney broadcaster and motor-mouth, McCrossin was plucked from thin air by the shows executive producer, Ted Robinson.
"He was on the constant lookout for new talent and rang me out of the blue. He said they wanted someone who's got an opinion, is articulate and mildly entertaining. Apparently I fitted the bill."
Indeed, she did, But the real clincher in her elevation from player to team captain came from her rapport with Robins and the mercurial McDermott.
For her first year and a half with the show, McCrossin says she signed a contract every week. The future, however, with a weekly variety version of Good News Week also on the drawing boards, looks bright.
"I don't think of myself as a comedienne." insists McCrossin. She usually makes her living from acting as an MC or facilitator for events and public forums.
"Really, I just try to amuse people while trying to perform a more serious function," she says.
This from a woman whose resume lists bus driving, waitressing in hot pants, nude modelling for artists, and six years performing on an arts circuit for schools, prisons and children's institutions.
It ran for 21/2 hours and a couple of the overseas guests, Lynn Ferguson and Rich Hall, were looking twitchy at 9.30pm when they were expected on stage elsewhere in the Town Hall.
The former ABC Show, directed by Sydney comedy king Ted Robinson, derives its format from a similar, if more political and highbrow, program in England.
Switch on Channel Ten on Sunday nights and you might catch one of the four programs recorded at the Melbourne Comedy Festival.
The cast were being very naughty. Host Paul McDermott and regular Mikey Robins were running hot with adlibbed material, much of which will end on the editing room floor because it was boring or full of swearing.
In addition to regular tean captain Julie McCrossin, other guests included Julia Zemiro (Totally Full Frontal) and Scottish comedian Phil Kaye, disappointingly here only for The Great Debate.
Kaye was the star of tle program. He like Robins, is a rapid-response comedy machine, but happily he resisted pandering to the high proportion of teen-telle-kiddies in the audience.
If he were doing a solo show, I'd be there in a flash to hear what this razor-sharp mind does with rehearsed material.
The writers of Good News Week (George Dodd, Steve Johnston etc) are witty, smart and succinct. The media provides them with infinite material for gags. Nothing is sacred: John Howard, Tim Fischer, Phil Coles all get a serve. Even Kosovo can be funny. Two of our comedy icons make guest appearances to thunderous applause: Flacco (Paul Livingstone) and the Sandman (Steve Abbott) Flacco, with his curlicue of hair pasted to his bald pate, babbles about crossword clues in his peculiar way.
The Sandman, possibly even more eccentric, manages to be a loser and a winner simultaneously in his story entitled, "Trying to be remarkable is painful; trying to be remembered is humiliating".
Then surprise, surprise! Billy Bragg strolls on stage to sing a mad song he purportedly wrote with the very dead Woody Guthrie.
This show never ceases to astonish.
"Yoda's not fucking happy!!" he screams insistently, the once familiar Triple J voice bellowing over the Sydney sand dunes that have become Tatooine for the afternoon. Paul McDermott, whose anti-hero persona lends itself more to a Trainspotting Ewan McGregor then Obi-Wan Kenobi, raises his eyebrows and threatens to silence the green Robins with his light sabre. Suddenly Anakin Skywalker aka Darth Vader's defection over to the Dark Side doesn't seem such a bad idea after all.
High on a sand dune not far, far away enough, a merchandising executive's worst nightmare is unfolding as the Good News team plan their own armada of Star Wars paraphernalia including a light sabre which would handily double as a cigarette lighter.
This take no prisoners humour which GNW is infamous for still blisters close to the surface when they're off camera. The satire coming from Paul "I'm trying to get an orgy started" McDermott resonates with an air of expectation. As too does the improvisational rampages of Mikey Robins, who likes to portray an externally amicable personality of "the guy in the pub who's wandered onto television." Not one to be bullied by the inter-galactic boys club, the balance to all this is Julie McCrossin, who adds some dignity to the occasion. "It's quite easy for me to maintain integrity. I don't have the capacity to do quick gags, so I can't automatically slip into a standard sex joke or big dick joke," she says without regret.
Between them, McDermott and Robins have more than enough quick gags. "The competitive side - it's amazing how quickly that takes hold," explains Robins, whose radio background has equipped him with an ability to verbally decimate the opposition. "This is pathetic, but three and half years in I still feel better on nights that my team wins than on nights that my team loses. It's silly like that. When you get to the structure of Good News it is a game show and that's what gives the programme a dramatic through line. If we ever abandoned the art of assault, if you didn't care who won or lost, then the show would lose that dramatic structure."
Despite the competitive spirit and rock &- roll wrestle repertoire, a tremendous camaraderie genuinely exists between McCrossin, McDermott and Robins. "In some fundamental gut way, we just click," says McCrossin.
Good mates off air and with a great respect for each other's talents, even Robins gets a bit "hippy" when describing GNW's working family headed by executive producer Ted Robinson. 'We are all basically good people who really love working with each other," he says, describing McCrossin as, " the elder sister who is out for the night with her two younger brothers who are playing brandings and she's amused but there are moments that we do genuinely embarrass her."
For Paul McDermott, who has always worked in groups - first in the Doug Anthony Allstars and now with GNW - belonging to a comic clan provides a deep sense of security. "I just prefer having the safety of a group. It gives you a sense of freedom and enclosure at the same time. There are some things you want to do but you can't because you have to he conscious of other people's needs.'
Engaged in a ratings war against the Evil empire of light entertainment led by Darth Somers, only the creative integrity of Good News em challenge prime time TV conservative status quo. Not just trying to he funny, GNW's satire raises issues that the Australian public at times neither want nor expect to hear.
Leading the rebellion against sanitised smiles and plastic bodies, McCrossin's presence on the idiot box offers an intelligent and refreshing alternative to the blow-up doll girls who keep male variety hosts company.
"If you have the capacity to make people laugh, you get a lot more leeway about how you look on the television and I think that this is a relief for people. People are prepared to pay a higher price for comedy," explains the feisty McCrossin on comedy's great equalising ability. "Comedy is one of the rare places in television that your looks are not a primary determinate."
Meanwhile back on the dunes, the body images of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda are taking a turn for the worse as McDermott and Robins use to the sabre to ignite a cigarette. "I keep on getting pubic hair in my mouth," complains Robins of the migrating toupee, leaving the impression that even in deep space there is an RSL.
As though the surreal job requirement of dressing in Star Wan drag was as ordinary as opening a can of beer, McDermott poses nonchalantly next to the metamorphosised Robins and the mother of Leia and Luke, McCrossin. For this vulgarity connoisseur, embracing the vandalising good taste is all part of the act. 'The thing is, I don't care what you have to go through to get the final product. If it means all manner of hell and tears, that's fine because that's what you have to achieve to get that one moment," McDermott explains of why no personal embarrassment ever finds its way into his performances.
The shadows growing long over the dunes, the masturbation jokes exhausted, the GNW team reload back into Juice's version of the Millennium Falcon. McDermott refuses to smile, Robins asks if he can keep the ears and McCrossin laughs over what she would later reflect as, "a totally surreal way to lead your life. I find it amusing on a very deep level. There is something so silly about us on a sand dune. There is something very absurd about being so intense about something so silly. One of the things I really enjoy about Good News Week is that we are so intense about something so absurd."