Norman Gunston is a satirical TV character performed by Australian actor and comedian Garry McDonald. Norman Gunston was primarily well known in his native Australia and, to a lesser extent, the United States during the mid- to late 1970s. He was the only Gold Logie–winning fictional character on Australian television, with McDonald collecting the 1976 Gold Logie and the George Wallace Memorial Logie for Best New Talent in character.
Early years The Gunston character was originally conceived for a sketch by comedy writer Wendy Skelcher in the second series of the cult Australian TV comedy series The Aunty Jack Show in 1973.Anon, 'Gong culture', Sydney Morning Herald "Good Weekend" section, 22 June 1996 p.11 Cast member Garry McDonald portrayed Gunston as a dull and talentless local TV reporter from the industrial city of Wollongong – a locale that was the butt of many jokes throughout the series. McDonald later claimed that the Gunston character and his show were devised as a parody of an (unintentionally bad) late-night Sydney TV variety show of the early 1970s hosted by expatriate American club entertainer Tommy Leonetti. In 1975, when The Norman Gunston Show was established as a successful comedy program, McDonald said:
McDonald claimed he'd created the name 'Norman Gunston' from an air stewardess who'd told off David Frost in McDonald's presence, changing it from "Norma Gunston" to Norman Gunston. In 2022 McDonald admitted he'd misheard the name as Norma, and that in reality she was "Lorna Gunston".
The Gunston character made enough of an impression in Aunty Jack for him to be revived in a subsequent comedy mini-series made by the Aunty Jack team, Wollongong the Brave (1974), in which he starred in a satirical mock documentary Norman Gunston: The Golden Weeks. His segments as Norman in What's on in Wollongong became one of the most popular parts of the Aunty Jack Show, and Norman appeared on the Aunty Jack Sings Wollongong album along with McDonald's other character, Kid Eager.
National fame
In his later and most famous incarnation, Gunston had evolved to become the unlikely host of his own national TV variety show, The Norman Gunston Show, which premiered with a live broadcast on ABC television on 18 May 1975. Dubbed "the little Aussie bleeder" (a play on the term "Aussie battler"), he satirised parochial Australian culture, media "personalities" and egocentric talk show hosts.
After a faltering start, the Norman Gunston Show rapidly gained a huge national audience and the series became the pre-eminent Australian TV comedy program of its day, with McDonald winning a Gold Logie and having several pop hits. He is, notably, the only Logie recipient who has received the award in the name of his character rather than in his own name.
The series producer director was John Eastway.
Format
The Gunston show was a subversive parody of the established variety "Tonight Show" format, centring on a weekly roster of celebrity guests who were 'interviewed' by Norman. Genuine musical performances by guest stars were countered by Norman's own unique interpretations of popular songs – he specialised in portraying his lyrics through mime and sign language and frequently punctuated the song with 'dramatic' interjections. Among his memorable performances were his histrionic rendition of the Tom Jones hit "Delilah", his charades-like version of "Send in the Clowns" and his heroic interpretation of the Liza Minnelli's theme-song "Liza with a Z", which Norman back-announced by guilelessly expressing surprise at the fact that few singers except "Miss Lisa Minnulli" had ever attempted the song. McDonald is in real life an accomplished blues harmonica player (he jammed with Frank Zappa in an interview recording during Zappa's second Australian tour) and many of Norman's musical performances were regularly punctuated by poorly executed and inappropriate harmonica playing, such as in his rendition of the Billy Joel signature tune "Piano Man".
Norman's distinctive interview "shtick" included several recurring features. He habitually presented himself as ill-prepared and under-researched, seeming largely ignorant of and/or uninterested in his guests' achievements, although he was always quick to exploit any chance that their celebrity status might enable him to achieve one of his ambitions, such as being chosen to star in a cigarette ad (which he eventually achieved with 'Dukes' Cigarettes), or winning a Gold Logie.
Norman would further undercut his guests' star status by linking any aspect of their lives and careers to the most mundane features of his own life; he also habitually employed malapropisms and made a particular feature of mis-pronouncing stars' names, or apparently mistaking them for someone else. In his debut show he repeatedly referred to wealthy Sydney socialite Lady Fairfax as "Mrs Lady Fairfax" and in a later show he introduced progressive union leader Jack Mundey as "Mister Jack Mondaay" – a satirical inversion of the Australian habit of pronouncing the morphograph '-day' as '-dee' in the days of the week (e.g. "Sat'dee" for "Saturday").
As the series developed McDonald and his team introduced additional live and pre-taped segments including:
"Norman's Dreamtime" – a mock-fairytale segment in which Gunston regaled a group of increasingly bored children with readings from a book of iconic Australian fables, with titles such as "Why Underpants Ride Up" "Consumer Straight Talk" – helpful tips on alternative uses for everyday household items, which later evolved into the even more grandiose-sounding "Spaceship Southern Hemisphere" a weekly review of the show's ratings over previous weeks, with suggestions on how viewers and the studio audience might help them skyrocket; later in Series 1 this focused on Norman's increasingly desperate campaign to win the coveted Gold Logie – which is, ironically, exactly what transpired at the 1976 Logies. in Series 2 Gunston presented (but did not appear in) a 3-minute satirical 'micro-soap' called Checkout Chicks, which parodied current Australian TV soap operas and starred actresses well known for their appearances in such programs, including Number 96 stars Abigail and Philippa Baker, Class of 74 star Anne Louise Lambert, who went on to star in Picnic at Hanging Rock (in which McDonald also appeared in a 'straight' role).
Stage settings were defiantly downmarket and rooted in Australian suburbia and kitsch RSL club stylings – after being introduced, bemused guests were offered their choice of dubious delicacies (such as pineapple doughnuts or the infamous Chiko Roll) from Norman's hot food bar, before being invited to sit on his vinyl-clad "night-and-day" (an Australian term for sofa bed). Perhaps the most memorable example of this was his interview of Edward Woodward and Michele Dotrice, during which he performed his version of Othello 'for the rugby leagues clubs', which involved him squirting tomato sauce over a ventriloquists's dummy, reducing Woodward to helpless laughter.
Gunston's personal appearance satirised club performers and TV interviewers of the time – for the studio segments he wore an ill-fitting blue lurex tuxedo jacket (wrongly buttoned) and the fly on his (too short) trousers was habitually left undone, with the shirt-tail poking out through the zip. Gunston also adopted a deliberately bad comb over hairstyle to partially cover his balding head. One of his visual trademarks was the small pieces of tissue paper applied to his pasty white face to cover supposed shaving cuts. This comic device led to his memorable exchange with visiting American actress Sally Struthers – noting Norman's apparent shaving cuts, she kindly suggested that perhaps Gunston should use an electric razor; the nonplussed Norman replied "Uh, I do", at which point Struthers collapsed in a fit of laughter.
Gunston performed subversive TV interviews with many major celebrities – during a Wings press conference he quipped to Linda McCartney: 'That's funny, you don't look Japanese.' (referencing Yoko Ono); other famous victims included Mick Jagger, Warren Beatty, Charlton Heston, and Muhammad Ali. Perhaps Norman's most well known interview was with Keith Moon at Charlton stadium in 1976. Moon famously ended his brief encounter with Norman by tipping Vodka over his head and yelling "Piss off, you Australian slag".
McDonald was one of the pioneers of the satirical "ambush" interview technique, which was founded on his considerable improvisational acting skills and precise comic timing. The "Gunston Method" relied on the fact that, especially in the early days of the series, the Norman persona was still relatively unknown in his home country, and completely unknown outside Australia. Thus, he was successfully able to hide behind the guise of a fully rounded and highly plausible character who appears to be stupid in order to throw his otherwise media-savvy quarry off their guard. This caused various results, from hilarity (Sally Struthers and Cheech and Chong), to clever play-alongs like Muhammad Ali ("I'm punchy – what's your excuse?") to bewilderment (Warren Beatty), to complete outrage (Rudolf Nureyev, Michael Cole).
The Gunston technique has since been employed by many comedians. In both style and appearance, Paul Kaye's character Dennis Pennis was strongly reminiscent of Gunston. It later had a very successful revival thanks to the British satirist Sacha Baron Cohen through his characters Ali G, Borat and Brüno. Canadian comedian and actor Martin Short also employed a similar technique with his best-known character, the fawning, morbidly obese celebrity interviewer Jiminy Glick; another notable resemblance between Glick and Norman is the Glick show's "fairytale" segment "Lalawood Fables", which is very similar to the "Norman's Dreamtime" segments of the Gunston show, in which the host reads a satirical mock-fable (intercut with pre-produced vision) to a group of assembled children. The Australian satirical comedy team The Chaser have also frequently used the Gunston Method to ambush unwitting targets—examples include the Julian Morrow character the "Citizens' Infringment Officer", and the team's now-legendary stunt in which they managed to penetrate a tight security cordon around the APEC Forum, despite the fact that Chas Licciardello was masquerading as Osama bin Laden.
Gunston was immortalised in Australian political history when, on the morning of 11 November 1975, McDonald and his film crew found out that the Labor government led by Gough Whitlam had just been dismissed by the Governor-General Sir John Kerr. On hearing the news, McDonald and his crew raced from SydneyInterview with Garry McDonald, on Youtube to Parliament House in Canberra, where they were able to film McDonald (as Gunston) briefly addressing the assembled crowd, only moments before Whitlam and the Governor-General's Official Secretary David Smith appeared for the reading of the now-famous proclamation announcing Whitlam's dismissal.Video of Norman Gunston at Parliament House on 11-11-1975, YouTube
In 1976, the ABC aired a third season of The Norman Gunston Show. By this stage, increased production budgets afforded Gunston more opportunities for overseas interviews, including Malcolm Muggeridge, Michael Caine, John Sturges, Glenda Jackson, John Stonehouse, and Rudolph Nureyev. One memorable encounter with Frank Zappa ended with Zappa and Norman duetting respectively on guitar and harmonica in a spontaneous blues jam (McDonald is in fact a proficient harmonica player). As the jam concluded, McDonald threw in a witty musical quote from the well-known ABC news theme, a nod to Zappa's well-known proclivity for inserting musical quotes such as TV themes into his work.
In November 1976, a specially prepared 45-minute UK Gunston TV special was screened on BBC2 TV. Some of Gunston's guests on the show included Diana Dors and Tony Greig.