Roy and HG

Roy and HG are an Australian comedy duo, comprising Greig Pickhaver in the role of "HG Nelson" and John Doyle as "'Rampaging' Roy Slaven". Their act is an affectionate but irreverent parody of Australia's obsession with sport. Their characters are based on archetypes in sports journalism: Nelson the excitable announcer, Slaven the retired sportsman turned expert commentator. In his 1996 book Petrol, Bait, Ammo & Ice, Pickhaver summarised the duo's comedic style as "making the serious trivial and the trivial serious".[1]

This Sporting Life was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia registry in 2013.[2]

Radio

Doyle and Pickhaver wrote and hosted the live, improvised, and satirical radio program This Sporting Life on Triple J from 1986 to 2008. They also broadcast annual live commentaries of the NRL and AFL grand finals (dubbed the Festival of the Boot, Parts I and II) and the Melbourne Cup. Commentaries for all three matches of rugby league's annual State of Origin series are also broadcast (main article: Roy and HG's State of Origin commentary), and they have also broadcast live commentaries of other major events, including the Bicentennial celebrations on 26 January 1988 and the 2007 Australian federal election (Indecision 07). They also provided a half-hour coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics every weekday under the guise of the Golden Ring Show.

They left Triple J in 2008 and, from 12 January 2009, presented the drive-time program The Life on the Triple M network,[3] on Mondays and Fridays.

In 2011, 'The Life' show was cut to Fridays only,[4] with the last episode broadcast on 25 November 2011.[5]

Television

ABC

After several years on radio, Roy and HG transferred the radio show's format to a series of ABC television shows, including Blah Blah Blah (1988) (where they were only seen in silhouette), This Sporting Life (1993), the Logie award-winning Club Buggery (1995–97) and its successor The Channel Nine Show (1998), Planet Norwich (1998; made in the UK) and The Memphis Trousers Half-Hour (2005; taped in Sydney but performed as if broadcast from the United States).

UK

In 1997, the duo featured in an ad campaign for Foster's Lager in the United Kingdom, featuring the recurring tagline, "Tickle it, you wrigglers!". Their British profile increased, they subsequently appeared as recurring guests on the 1998 BBC one series, "The Ben Elton Show" a stand up / variety show fronted by Elton, but also featuring the return of Ronnie Corbett's 'armchair monologue' in a regular slot, and a different musical guest each week.

Seven Network

After transferring to the commercial Seven Network in the late 1990s, they presented Win Roy & H.G.'s Money (2000), an unsuccessful adaptation of the US hit Win Ben Stein's Money. They later succeeded with higher-rating shows The Monday Dump and The Nation Dumps.

Their biggest hit was undoubtedly their top-rating commentary-interview television program The Dream with Roy and HG (from the Sydney 2000 Olympics), featuring their own special outlook on the event. The Dream was followed by three spinoffs - The Ice Dream (from the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics), The Cream (from the 2003 Rugby World Cup), and more recently The Dream again for the Athens 2004 Olympics. During the Ice Dream they launched a bid for the Winter Olympics to be held at Smiggin Holes, in the humorous Smiggin Holes 2010 Winter Olympic bid with suggested slogans "Unleash the Mighty Mongrel", "Winter Wonder Down Under" and "If you've got the poles, we've got the holes." Dream-style coverage of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, called the Dribble mit HG und Roy, was streamed via the Internet.

Roy and H.G.'s sport shows were filmed in front of a live studio audience, segments including discussion between the two characters, interview with athletic guests and pre-recorded sports commentary. The humour of the duo's sports commentary came from their mock-serious tone which belied the innuendo and invented terminology that they used to describe the on-screen action. The pair would state fictitious "facts" about the competitors' occupations, histories and personalities. Roy and H.G. would also describe fictitious aspects of the competition venues, such as the so-called "Gobbler's Gulch" section of the Salt Lake City luge track.[6]

Roy and HG were not selected by Channel Seven to cover the Beijing Olympics because of security concerns and the belief by Channel Seven management that the style of their coverage - going to air live following a day's events - would not have suited Australian audiences given Australia's time zones.[7] Instead, a daily radio programme, The Golden Ring Show, was broadcast on Triple J, with Roy styled as "Crouching Tiger" and H.G. as "the Hidden Dragon".

Memphis Trousers

In 2005, they presented The Memphis Trousers Half Hour, a TV show they claimed was recorded in different American cities such as Baltimore or Albuquerque, ensuring that 'Australia is the flavour of the month, every month'. The show screened weekly on the ABC on Saturday nights and was named after an incident in which former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser lost his trousers in a Memphis hotel.

The show, seemingly filmed in the United States, was in fact filmed entirely in Sydney. The format was a parody of American talk shows and pretended to present Americans with new 'facts' about Australia.

Network Ten

Roy & HG joined Network Ten for their Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics coverage where they hosted a commentary show called Roy and H.G’s Russian Revolution. HG Nelson also joined Stephen Quartermain and Alisa Camplin for the Sochi Tonight daily show.[8][9]

Awards and nominations

Year & Ceremony For Award Result
1997 Logie Awards Club Buggery Most Outstanding Achievement In Comedy Won [10]
1997 Logie Awards Club Buggery Most Popular Comedy Program Nominated [11]
1998 Logie Awards Club Buggery Most Outstanding Achievement In Comedy Nominated [12]
2001 Logie Awards The Dream with Roy and HG Most Popular Sports Program Won [13]
2001 Logie Awards The Dream with Roy and HG Most Outstanding Comedy Program Nominated
2002 Logie Awards The Monday Dump Most Popular Sports Program Nominated
2002 Logie Awards The Monday Dump Most Outstanding Comedy Program Nominated
2003 Australian Comedy Awards 17 years of radio & television work Outstanding Performers Won [14]
2003 Australian Comedy Awards 17 years of radio work Outstanding Networked Radio Comedy Performance Won [14]
2003 Logie Awards The Ice Dream Most Outstanding Comedy Program Nominated
2003 Logie Awards The Monday Dump Most Popular Sports Program Nominated
2004 Logie Awards The Cream with Roy and HG Most Popular Sports Program Nominated [15]
2005 Logie Awards The Dream in Athens Most Popular Sports Program Nominated

Published works

Influence on artists in other media

In 2001 a portrait of Roy and HG by visual artist Paul Newton won the Packing Room Prize and the People's Choice award at the Archibald Prize.

References

  1. ↑ H G Nelson Petrol, bait, ammo & ice Pan Macmillan, Sydney 1996
  2. ↑ National Film and Sound Archive: Sounds of Australia.
  3. ↑ Media release—"triple j presenters: Hello & Goodbye". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 2008-12-02. Retrieved 2009-02-12.
  4. ↑
  5. ↑
  6. ↑ The Ice Dream - Luge commentary
  7. ↑ The Australian Seven goes into morning over Roy and H.G. demise
  8. ↑ TV Tonight TEN signs Roy and HG for Winter Olympics
  9. ↑ "Roy and HG to medal with Sochi Olympics on Ten". News.com.au. 23 January 2014. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
  10. ↑ "Tall Poppies: 1997 Logie Award Winners". ALLdownunder.com. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
  11. ↑ "Australian Television: 1994-1997 Logie Awards". T. Zuk. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
  12. ↑ "Australian Television: 1998 Logie Awards". T. Zuk. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
  13. ↑ "Logie award winners 2001". News Limited. 3 May 2007. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
  14. 1 2 "Two gongs for Roy and HG". The Sydney Morning Herald. 27 November 2003. Retrieved 2009-04-04. |first1= missing |last1= in Authors list (help)
  15. ↑ "2004 Logies nominations". The Age (theage.com.au). 16 April 2004. Retrieved 2009-04-04.
  16. ↑ Nelson, H. G.; Roy Slaven (1989). Pants off, this sporting life. Crows Nest, N.S.W.: ABC Enterprises for Australian Broadcasting Corporation. p. 143. ISBN 0-642-12888-X.
  17. 1 2 {{Pound for pound [sound recording] / with Roy and HG. Doyle, John, 1953-Bookmark: http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/13258856 Physical Description 1 sound cassette : Dolby processed. Published [Australia] : ABC, 1993. Language English 6|url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/11308870?selectedversion=NBD10638021}}
  18. ↑ Slaven, Roy; Nelson (1995). Roy & HG present Allan Border: cricket's first saint. H.G. Triple J: ABC. pp. 1 compact disc. ISBN 0-642-17819-4.
  19. ↑ Nelson, H. G.; Roy Slaven; Reg Mombassa (1996). "Petrol, bait, ammo & ice". Book. Pan Macmillan. p. 220. Retrieved 2009-04-09.
  20. ↑ Doyle ('Slaven'), John ('Roy'); Greig Pickhaver ('H. G. Nelson') (c. 2000). The dream with Roy and H. G: the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Todd Abbott, Colin Bromley. Sydney, N.S.W.: Warner Vision Australia [distributor]. pp. 7 hrs., 12 mins.

External links

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