Young Talent Time
Young Talent Time was an Australian television variety program screened on Network Ten. It ran from 1971 until 1988 - for a total of almost 18 years. The series featured a core group of young performers - vaguely in the vein of The Mickey Mouse Club, and a weekly junior talent quest. The Young Talent Team regularly performed popular classics along with the top hit songs of the day. The program was the creation of host Johnny Young, and over the years it ran it gave many young performers their first taste of fame.
Some Young Talent Timers disappeared into oblivion (many through choice) after their stint on the show was up, but many went on to have successful adult careers in show business as either actors or performers. Members of the Young Talent Team who found continued success after leaving the series include Tina Arena, Jamie Redfern, Dannii Minogue, and Debra Byrne.
Because the series ran for such a long time and featured young performers, Young Talent Time made an indelible mark on the psyche of several generations of Australian children, leading them to believe that if they tried hard enough, they too could be a 'star' like the kids they saw on television.
One memorable aspect of the show was the regular closing number, where Johnny Young would sing the Beatles song All My Lovin' (which he had an Australian hit with back in the 1960s), accompanied by the entire cast, in an almost lullaby style, individually wishing all of the children good night.
Johnny Young was accused of many things throughout the run of the show, including being homosexual and having pedophillic tendencies toward the kids on the show. All rumors were just that, and none were ever proven.
Late in the show's run, Young Talent Time launched an American based show, "New Generation", produced in Australia starring certain members of the Young Talent Team with a new American host named Michael Young. It was screened twice weekly in the US. Europe and Canada.
In its final years Young Talent Time struggled for ratings, and the final nail in the coffin was the decision by the rival Nine Network to run the enormously popular variety show Hey Hey It's Saturday in the same Saturday night timeslot. Young Talent Time could not even hope to compete with it, and the show was abruptly cancelled in January, 1989.
The cancellation of the show was a blow to many, including die hard fans and the cast themselves. The biggest blow, however, was dealt to host Johnny Young who had been suffering setback after setback in the late 1980s. Young had invested a large amount of money in building a studio complex in the hope of producing the show himself and selling it back to Network Ten. The cancellation dashed these hopes, and he was forced to sell his family home to settle debts. Young then lost his stepfather, then his mother, and finally his marriage to wife Cathy fell apart. In 1993 his friend Terry Higgins, a former Young Talent Time director, was diagnosed as being HIV positive. Young accompanied Higgins to a Filipino clinic which offered the so called 'Ozone Therapy'. The clinic turned out to be an illegal operation, and Young was arrested by police, forced to undergo a HIV test and threatened with deportation. The story was picked up by the Australian media and splashed all over the country.
The tragic death of former cast member Juanita Coco in 1993 cast a further shadow on the memory of the ill-fated show. Juanita was only 17 when she died in an alcohol related car accident.
Young Talent Time was filmed mainly at the studios of ATV-10 in Nunawading, Melbourne although the occasional show was filmed at TEN-10 in Sydney. Sadly, many of the episodes from the early-mid 1970s no longer exist as the tapes were wiped for re-use, being the official Network Ten policy at the time. Later episodes from the series were repeated by pay TV broadcaster Foxtel in the late 1990s.
A Young Talent Time reunion was held in 2001, in which many of the cast including Young were reunited in a television special.
Team Members
- Beven Addinsall
- Tina Arena
- Rikki Arnot
- John Bowles
- Sally Boyden
- Vicki Broughton (original member)
- Debbie (Debra) Byrne (original member)
- Michael Campbell
- Juanita Coco
- Courtney Compagnino
- Joey Dee
- Bobby Driessen
- Rod Kirkham
- Karen Knowles
- Jodie Loebert
- Mark McCormack
- Natalie Miller
- Dannii Minogue
- Tim Nelson
- Lorena Novoa
- Joe[y] Perrone
- Jamie Redfern
- Derek Redfern
- Katie Van Ree
- Julie Ryles
- Jane Scali (original member)
- Mark Stevens
- Vince Del Tito
- Vanessa Windsor
- Steven Zammit