Australian TV hasn’t always been full of scripted reality cooking and renovating shows. Proof:

Iggy Pop on Countdown, 1979

Iggy’s manic interview with Molly and subsequent highly entertaining miming of I’m Bored. Iggy blames jetlag. I love the way the girls in the audience keep recoiling from the flailing mike stand.

Cold Chisel, Countdown Music Awards, 1981

Riding high on the release of second album East Cold Chisel closed out the Countdown Music Awards – where they took out eight awards – with half a song and then smashed the set and their gear. They say it was in protest against sponsors TV Week being involved in the awards. TV Week were not amused and weren’t involved again.

Billy Idol, Countdown Music Awards, 1984

Billy had “had some really heavy sex” in Australia.

Lubricated Goat, Blah Blah Blah, 1988

From an early episode of Andrew Denton’s Blah Blah Blah. Classic clip and song from a great Sydney band.

Ben Folds, Midday Show, 1997

For Kerri-Anne Kennerley it was “one of those days” when Ben Folds Five put in a spirited performance of One Angry Dwarf on Midday. Unhappy chappy Geoff Harvey: “I just don’t understand”.

(For a bonus Midday Show tangent there was also Normie Rowe and Ron Casey’s infamous 1991 punch-up).

John Spencer Blues Explosion, Recovery, 1998

Full of beans frontman John Spencer doing his thing on Saturday morning TV.