Number 96 Home Page

NOVEL: The plotlines for this original paperback novel, "Number 96" (published by Stag, a division of Horwitz, North Sydney; released in early 1976), take place around the time of Episode #885 in late 1975. The title page is simply "96" . The two main story arcs feature Jaja Gibson and Grace "Prim" Primrose prominently, but no actors from the series appear on the book's cover. There is even a series of references to the ongoing garbage strike, aka The Dustbin Dispute , against Paddington Council happening in the aired series, in particular: Episode #885 (Weppo tells Reg about the proposed strike action); Episode #890 (Reg asks Weppo to resign); Episode #892 (TV journalist Brian Proud covers strike for Channel TEN); Episode #894 (Norma gets involved); Episode #896 (Network 0-10's The Mike Walsh Show interviews Dorrie and Weppo); and Episode #898 (Strike is over). Uncredited, this novel was apparently written by Carl Ruhen, who did the Neighbour...

Now that the early, surviving b/w episodes are available for streaming at "Brollie", here are some brief synopses that exist for Episodes #16 to #30: Episode 16. (30/03/1972) Mark is aghast that Helen must have total recall of losing her baby if she is ever to make a full recovery. Vera is perplexed by a sense of deja vu. Where has she seen Gordon, the new chemist, before? On Good Friday, 31st March, the show was pre-empted by "Telethon '72", in aid of the Royal New South Wales Institute for Deaf and Blind Children. However, as compensation, viewers were promised telethon appearances by celebrities Johnny Lockwood, Pat McDonald, Joe Hasham, Briony Behets and "the entire cast of 'Number 96'". Episode 17. (3/04) Gordon is worried that Vera has recognised him and knows him to be the disgraced, former Doctor Vansard, so he takes action. Episode 18. (4/04) Maggie discovers that Bruce is moonlighting again. This plotline was novelised for ...

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/

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. "Mummy and Me" EPISODES 1071, 1072. (First aired 25/10/1976) The Chester girls see a way out of their difficulties. Fl...

Hello everyone! I am hoping to avert a disaster of deli bomb proportions! My Australian Internet provider, iiNet, has been adjusting things to accommodate the National Broadband Network (NBN) rollout - I've been on NBN for two years now - and suddenly my free webspace is no more! Until I can move all the Number 96 Home Page files to this new home, please use Wayback Machine 's preserved pages (linked below). I think everything still exists (but the original HTML files I created are on a computer I haven't turned on in many years)! The Number 96 Home Page was originally uploaded in 1996 (Magna), greatly revamped in 2005 (Ozemail) and then subsumed by iiNet. The most recent overhaul (via the Transmit app) was in 2012, and those changes were made online only. Eeek! The Home Page, in its original form, was one of only three Australian television show websites archived in the early days of Pandora, the National Library of Australia's archive of "significant websi...