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The Wit and Wisdom (and Malapropisms) of Dorrie Evans

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"Why wasn't I told?" "It's enough to drive a body beresk." "I am quite ardamant about that." "Speaking for myself, personally, alone..." "I prefer to remain ambiguous about that." "It is a well-known fact." "That is all my eye and Mary Martin." "Life is not always a bowl of cherubs." "That is a horse of an entirely different colour." "Pardon me for protruding..." PARTING COMMENT (in the last episode): "We've passed a lot of water under the bridge."

Suggestions for the Return of Maggie Cameron

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The recurring character of Maggie Cameron (Bettina Welch) was quickly embroiled in an early dramatic arc in Season One of Number 96 : a romantic entanglement with the bisexual, fashion photographer, Bruce ; his homosexual, law student lover, Don ; their virginal, next door neighbour, Bev ; a shady biker, Cliff ; and Maggie's estranged husband, Victor . This plotline was novelised for a 1973 Arkon tie-in paperback, Bev & Bruce & Maggie & Don . Coincidentally, the actors who played her husband (Owen Weingott) and her lover, Bruce (Paul Weingott), were father and son. From Episode #60, Maggie began convincing Vera about starting a business venture with her: a Double Bay fashion salon, The Tapemeasure . With Victor now working overseas, the two woman became rivals for the affections of advertising guru, Simon (who would also return in the 1974 feature film version). She also briefly moved in with Vera. In a memo dated 11th December, 1972 , a think tank by the writ

Afternoons with Paula Kruger, ABC Radio Canberra

Today, Joe Hasham (Don Finlayson), author Nigel Giles and Number 96 Historian, Ian McLean, were interviewed by Paula Kruger for ABC Radio Canberra. You can find the audio of the episode posted here... It’ll be up for a fortnight if you want to take a recording to keep: www.abc.net.au/radio/canberra/programs/afternoons/episodes/

A placeholder site

Hi all, As you may recall, my Number 96 Home Page (est. 1996) at members.ozemail.com.au/~lindsay96/ vanished without warning last year, so while I waited for action from my service provider, the most frequently-used elements (such as the episode guide) had to be urgently retrieved from Wayback Machine (because my original HTML files are on a dinosaur computer, and recent updates had been done to the site live). All old "free" webpages had been wiped clean in an overhaul of their system. Thus, I had hastily uploaded this placeholder site on Blogger. I was able to transfer the number96.tv domain name to here instead, plus the year-by-year episode guides. (At least when people typed in the domain name, they had something to view; the 1999 edition of the home page is also archived on Pandora , but that version is long out of date.) Then, while re-creating and improving the old character guide from my retrieved data, my computer crashed... just as I got to "Z" on

The Number 96 spin-off pilots

Several attempts were made by Cash Harmon Productions to spin-off new shows from "Number 96". Josephine Kurr's character of Lorelei Wilkinson was killed off so she could headline as a new character in "The Unisexers", over on Channel 9, but it was shortlived. Comedy pilots were then written around the characters of Reg & Edie Macdonald ("Mummy and Me"), Vera Collins ("Fair Game", featuring the return of Abigail!), Don Finlayson (reconceived as a straight-acting, "Petrocelli"-type, investigative lawyer) and, a year later, Hope Jackson (in a script loosely based on a classic comedy movie, "Bells Are Ringing"). All of these pilots were made as if they were scenes from the parent series, and economically inserted into regular "Number 96" episodes. All were ultimately unsuccessful. EPISODES 1071, 1072. (First aired 25/10/1976) The Chester girls see a way out of their difficulties. Flo learns more about the myst

Number 96 and me: the novelisations - by Anne Harrex

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Essay by Anne Harrex, February 2014 Between 1972 and 1974, eight novelisations based on storylines from the TV show, Number 96 , were published by Angus & Robertson under the Arkon paperback imprint. In the end, I wrote seven of these and edited another of them (“The Wayward Husband”) for publication. It all began with an advertisement in the weekend newspaper, “The Review”, formerly “Sunday Review”, “The Sunday Review” and, in its last incarnation, “Nation Review”. The ad may have appeared somewhere else, but this was where I saw it. Writers were wanted for crime and romance novels (I think it was romance) – “to apply send examples of your work to…” (The address gave no other clues.) I’d always been writing and had a drawerful of rejection slips to prove it. As I had two young children, who were now both at school, it looked like the ideal thing for me. In those days there were still postal deliveries on a Saturday morning. It was a Saturday some weeks later when a parc

40 years ago today...

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40 years ago today, the final episodes of "Number 96" (#1217 & 1218) aired on Sydney television. Many former cast members returned to take curtain call bows with the final residents. What happened that night...: The residents of Number 96 are horrified to learn the identity of the building's mysterious buyer. The person who is driving them from their homes is none other than Maggie Cameron! Giovanni Lenzi and Marilyn MacDonald's romance fizzles once again, with Marilyn's decision to become a nun. Little Simon Dawson's body is found in Tamworth, but it is a false alarm. Giovanni announces a sell-out sale in the deli. Maggie explains that she couldn't resist one last trick played on the residents. Simon turns up safe and well. Dorrie Evans loses Herb half a million dollars because of her anger over his business relationship with Opal "Gran" Wilkinson. Everyone is pleased that the building will not change hands after all. While Arnold Feathe