Kingswood Country is an Australian sitcom that screened from 1980 to 1984 on the Seven Network. The series started on 30 January 1980 and was a spin-off from a sketch on comedy program The Naked Vicar Show that had featured Ross Higgins as a blustering bigot. It was produced by RS Productions. While some condemned its racist and sexist humour, this was often simply a plot device to show and mock the bigotry of the main character, Edward Melba "Ted" Bullpitt (Ross Higgins), a white Australian, conservative, bigoted, Holden Kingswood-loving putty factory worker and WWII veteran who recalls his difficult childhood in ever more exaggerated ways. He lives for three things: his beloved chair in front of the TV, his unsuccessful racing greyhounds Repco Lad & Gae Akubra and his worshipped Holden Kingswood car (late in the show's run Ted traded-in the Kingswood, which had gone out of production around the time the series began, for Holden's replacement mid-range family car, the Commodore). His long-suffering wife, the vague and dithering Thelma (Judi Farr), was cast as a traditional housewife trapped by Ted's conservative family views, but she often got her own back on Ted. Humour was generated by the conflict of Ted's traditional views and his children's progressive nature. For example, his son Craig (Peter Fisher) is portrayed as a sexually rampant medical student and is referred to as an "Al Grassby Groupie", a reference to a flamboyant Australian Labor Party politician of the Whitlam era. His daughter, Greta (Laurel McGowan), is portrayed as a feminist and is married to Bruno (Lex Marinos), the son of Italian immigrants, to which Ted strongly objects (often referring to him as a "bloody wog"). Other politically incorrect humour includes Ted's references to Neville, the concrete Aboriginal garden statue. At other times, humour was based on the more traditional comedic methods of poorly thought-out schemes of Ted's (usually get-rich-quick); class differences (between the suburban Bullpitts and Ted's upwardly-mobile sister-in-law Merle) and simple misunderstandings leading to a chain of humorous events. Reruns occasionally air on cable and satellite channel FOX Classics or Comedy. Kingswood Country is now available on DVD. Clip from an episode titled The Royal Visit (Season 2, Episode 3) first aired Jul 02, 1980. Written by Gary Reilly & Tony Sattler When Thel enters her meatloaf in a celebrity recipe contest and wins a visit from Graham Kennedy, Ted's meddling turns the occasion into a disaster. Graham Cyril Kennedy,(15 February 1934 -- 25 May 2005) was an Australian radio, television and film performer, often called Gra Gra (pronounced "grah-grah") and The King of Australian television.

• published: 14 Aug 2011
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