Himself
TV history will reveal that there were two Graham Kennedys – the funny, somewhat irreverent & controversial one who inhabited our living rooms for so many years – and the other, an intensely private, shy but affable man who talks for the first time in this brand new documentary tribute about his childhood, the early days in radio & TV, and his thoughts on life, marriage and death. His friends, colleagues, fellow performers, housekeeper, driver etc, all talk about the real Graham Kennedy they knew – utilising rare footage not previously seen on Australian television – with wonderful memories from Denise Drysdale, Rosemary Margan, philip Brady, Stephen Curry, Mike McColl-Jones and many more. This is not just another re-hashed TV special – but a new, rare insight into the boy from Balaclava – who became the undisputed “King of Australian Television”. produced by Bob phillips, one of the producers from Kennedy’s break-thru Channel 9 program ‘In Melbourne Tonight’
Himself (archive footage)
The King is the story of Graham Kennedy, Australia's first and greatest home grown TV superstar. It traces his rise from working class Balaclava kid, through radio, TV, film, and back to TV again. It also tracks Kennedy's personal tragedies - the loneliness, the unrealised ambitions and the terrible pressures of being Australia's first homegrown superstar in the 1950s and 60s.
Bert graced our screens for close on 50 years. Bert's career began in 1957 when he was 18 years old, he teamed up with Graham Kennedy on Channel 9 "In Melbourne Tonight". He has 4 Gold Logies to his name. In 1988, he was inducted into the Logies "Hall of Fame". This special presentation delves deep into the archives of Bert Newton's 27 years at Channel 9.
Freddie
An aged couple decide to move from Melbourne to north Queensland.
Dougal
The real-life story of a friendship between two journalists, an American and a Cambodian, during the bloody Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia in 1975, which led to the death of 2-3 million Cambodians during the next four years, until Pol Pot's regime was toppled by the intervening Vietnamese in 1979.
Norm Norris
Stanley Dunstan is a young eccentric. The son and heir to a family fortune has eluded all attempts by his father to make him "normal", and escapes from attempts to incarcerate him in the family sanatorium. Stanley retreats to prove he can become "normal" on his own, and does so by tracking down Australia's most "normal" family with whom he moves in and on whom he models his behaviour. Stars Graham Kennedy, Nell Campbell, Peter Bensley and Michael Craig.
Prime Minister
In WWII, Captain Invincible used his superpowers against the Nazis and was hailed as a hero. But when he was accused of treason, he retired to Australia in disgrace. Cut to the present, when a US super secret super weapon is stolen and he's asked to come back to the States in order to help stop evil and restore his sterling reputation. Unfortunately, Captain Invincible is a drunk now...
Ted Parker
The club buys a talented young player, Geoff, for a record sum of money. The team members do not like their new star and friction develops immediately. Game after game is lost until Geoff begins to realize that there is more at stake than just his own career.
Harry
A group of Australian SAS regiment soldiers are deployed to Vietnam around 1967/8 and encounter the realities of war, from the numbing boredom of camp life and long range patrols, raids and ambushes where nothing happens, to the the terror of enduring mortar barrages from an unseen enemy. Men die and are crippled in combat by firefights and booby traps, soldiers kill and capture the enemy, gather intelligence and retake ground only to cede it again whilst battling against the bureaucracy and obstinacy of the conventional military hierarchy. In the end they return to civilization, forever changed by their experiences but glad to return to the life they once knew.
Mack
On the night of the 1969 federal election, Don Henderson invites a group of friends to celebrate a predicted Labor Party victory, much to the dismay of his wife, Kath. The Hendersons and their nine guests drink, joke, make love, and fight, all while coming to terms with their individual struggles in life.
Self
While flying to the first stop on their latest tour, the four members of the Australian music group The Seekers recall in flashback the origins of the group and their rise to success.
The name Graham Kennedy has become folk-lore. Graham got his break as a radio sidekick, then fronted a live TV that nobody thought would last more than a few weeks. But nearly half a century later, he is still called 'The King'.