Fantastic to get another 5 episodes of Countdown. That's 17 episodes shown this season which is excellent considering there were just the 4 weekends.

I had previously requested the Ellen Foley episode on the old messageboard as it is the oldest episode in the archives (excepting the unbroadcastable 1978 Adelaide Festival show) that I hadn't seen and it looks like a good show. I will be interested to see if Ellen performs Stupid Girl live or they show the clip. From the guide it looks like a clip but I have seen plenty of errors in how those have been recorded in the past and you would hope they get the guest to perform.

Great to get a good version of the Jo Kennedy/Starstruck episode.

Also really looking forward to the Joan Armatrading episode which I haven't seen before. Nicholas is correct that it is show 385.

No GTK's shown at all after they had mentioned it in the first promo. I would rather see Countdown anyhow but they could have played a few of them on the Saturday morning shows instead of common clips.

Overall, as a Countdown fan, I feel it has been another brilliant January. However, with so many common clips shown on Saturday mornings and some on the nights, I would rather they played GTK, Hitscene, Flashez segments, Beatbox, Countdown Revolution or live performances from The Factory, Blah Blah Blah and 10:30 Slot instead and they would have been able to keep everyone happy at the same time without reducing the number of Countdowns shown.

Nice to have five episodes of Countdown, all from the early eighties. Looking forward to the Ellen Foley episode too, as there are no good quality versions of 'Stupid Girl' around ("live" or the video).
Jo Jo Zep's 'Losing Game' is also scarce, and 10cc's 'Feel The Love' in good quality.

Guru Bob, when you get time, would you mind posting (or updating) the list of unrepeated Countdowns remaining after this year?

I'm not complaining... but I would have liked a wider span of Countdowns shown this year.

The tally for each year this year was:

1980 - 3
1981 - 3
1982 - 4
1983 - 4
1984 - 1
1985 - 1
1986 - 1
1987 - 0

Also, some episodes this year repeated the same songs/artists, e.g. a Countdown with that Queen song at #1 has already aired, Divinyls' 'Siren' has too I think, Michael Jackson's 'One Day In Your Life'. I know some of that is inevitable, though.

Really looking forward to the Jo Kennedy episode - saw Starstruck when it came out and it's been a favorite ever since. Jo Kennedy was so cute! Overall looks great although I'd like to have another Rock Arena and some post '84 Countdowns. A Hitscene or two would be nice as well.

As much as I love Rock Arena, the selections this year for me were rather bland minus THE THE episode.


And the misprint last weekend was annoying as the episode that was supposed to be played has some cool Westworld videos in it. Anyhow ....
rage really need to play The Dugites live for Rock Arena and the Funkdown Parts 1 and 2 episodes. I'd love to see more Rock Arena's from 1982.

What can i say, the early 80s ruin me and always will. They were perfection and creative beyond anything that came after 1985

My dad took my sister and I to see Starstruck at THE GREATER UNION in Exhibition St in 1982 when it was released, soooo cool. That very Greater Union stayed exactly as it looked in 1982 until 2 years ago when they pulled it down for some posh hotel, arghhhhhh. Progress is S H I T

I didn't see Starstruck until the mid 90's. It was on TV one night or maybe the midday movie? 😂 I really didn't discover the first half of the 80s until Countdown repeats on rage. God bless you rage. 😃

Well Michael, I am glad rage has introduced you to THE best era in music. The early 80s and that you enjoy it so much.

Thanks raaaaage, where would us Countdown lovers be without them!

Thanks Rage too for the standalone videos this morning for 'What Do Boys Dream' by Joan Armatrading and 'Where Were You' by Flash & The Pan. More of these rare retro videos please rather than the common hits.

The Ellen Foley video they showed this morning had to be a YouTube rip (artist/song title in blue ALL CAPS at the start, dull/washed out colours and fuzzy picture), with the audio re-synced by the ABC. Personally, I'd rather they aired nothing rather than resorting to YouTube rips, as they look so bad when the ABC broadcasts them.

I recorded rage for Ellen Foley clip this morning and was going to check it soon. A You Tube rip, arghhh.

Ah well .....

I did notice after I saw your post when I went to edit on my DVD Recorder to keep the clip that it had the title in the beginning. Which to me looks like it's from a VHS compilation from the early 80s.

I do love lots of music from 1985 but the 80s became a bit too commercial for me by 1985/1986. The 'Miami Vice' era is too American and over produced. The NEW WAVE/NEW ROMANTIC era has aged beautifully as it was a new decade continuing from the freshness of 1979, so it was bound to be very original.


Much of the Australian and British 1985 was still brilliant though, but I found Countdown played less Australian content from more RARE bands and more American by 1985. I love how Countdown featured underground bands like Sardine V, Pel Mel, Ward 13 in the early 80s as well as The Expression e.t.c...

Unfortunately Countdown didn't feature enough Australian bands live in the studio anymore. Beargarden should have appeared live in the Countdown studio more than once, Hey Hey ended up having more performances from the likes of Beargarden etc than Countdown .... I'm Talking should have done Do You Wanna Be in the Countdown studio and not just awards, Koo De Tah should have done Think Of Me and Missed You All Along live on Countdown as well. I don't know why Countdown didn't have as many rarer Australian bands perform on the show by the mid 80s as they once didn't, anyhow's ...

Yes, Molly did always 'plug' America as if was the best place for Australian bands etc to have hits. I too think the UK and Europe was far more interesting musically than America. Commercial pop/rock America was rather awful in the 80s like Huey Lewis and all that rubbish but the US Funk material was far more interesting but shows like The Noise and Rock Arena played the more US Funk based material.

Countdown was overseas a lot in 1984 but Countdown still managed to have a lot of Australian bands live in the Countdown studio.

Though you have a very good point, I guess because Molly was 'Talent Co-ordinater' and not around as much in 1985/1986 the enthusiasm to have the same amount of Australian bands in the studio rather than just video would have played a big part. But also, video was a bigger medium by 1985 and it was cheaper to just play videos than do the elaborate set designs Countdown had from the 1980-1984 period.


I still don't see how hard it would have been to have bands like Koo De Tah, Beargarden perform every single released live in the Countdown studio, the high rotation of just videos by 1985/1986 killed the show. Though there are of course still some highlighted episodes from that mid 80s era that still feature a good amount of Countdown studio performances from OZ and International bands such as A-ha, The D a m n e d, Tears For Fears, Wa Wa Nee, Kids In The Kitchen, Pseudo Echo e.t.c...


Still bummed that in 1987 Carol Hitchcock didn't perform Get Ready on Countdown and Kylie didn't perform Locomotion on Countdown.


Would have also be great if in 1987, Mel & Kim would have came here for promo as they also could have performed on Countdown rather the endless crap performances from Crowded House, The Cockroaches and Painters And Dockers, arghhhhh

I totally agree re. UK music. Overall far more creative and original than the U.S. Though the U.S did have MJ and Prince.

Love that Countdown studio clip for "I Got You" - very creative

The 1980 episode was far the best episode for me played as the 2nd episode of the night. It was SOOOO futuristic and AMAZZZZZZING!


And the RARE Buggles video was simply toooo die for xoxoxo Was great to see the actual episode that I Got You was filmed for, goooorgeous xxxxx

I went to bed during the second episode (I was tired), but fast forwarded through this morning and saw that my signal dropped out for a few seconds during Sharon O'Neill's 'Maxine' performance on the last episode shown

Someone else who records rage (not on this forum) I asked also got a drop-out during the 'Maxine' performance, so presumably it was a transmission error. Did anyone else get the same thing?

I'm in Perth and didn't notice any issue with Maxine (other than having "COUNTDOWN August 28th, 1983" plastered over the start of it)
Maxine.MP4

I recorded on my DVD Recorder and my Foxtel IQ.

I always record on Fox tel as well as it's more reliable. I checked the 1982 JPY episode and I had lack of signal during Australian Crawls 'Shut Down' so funny you should mention that Guru ad it was very extreme so my Foxtel copy is perfect as I watched my Foxtel live last night instead of the DVD Recorder copy.

I didn't notice any dropout during Maxine and it seemed all in tact, I will watch it again later though

So do we know what the real date is of the Ellen Foley episode?

Re: Ellen Foley - My archives say Date:9/2/1980 ... And rage say 9/3/1980

So yeah

It can't be the 9/2/1980 as the first episode for 1980 was 3/2/1980 and Guru's list that he sent me many years ago has Ted Mulry as 10/2/1980. So maybe the Ellen Foley ep is 9/3/1980 as rage said?

Maybe it is the 9/3/1980 then... I don't know why my archives say 09/02/1980, arghhhhhhhhh.


I will check the paper archives the ABC gave me as well and get back to you

Guru also lists it as 10/2/80 as Ted Mulry in a recent thread 'Countdown episodes that rage has still to air'.

Okay, so you think Ellen Foley is 10/02/1980?

I haven't watched the full Ellen Foley ep yet, but did Molly mention Judi Tzuke from the week before or Steve Gilpin next week, which will then confirm it is 9/3/1980?

Okay, so rage are right and my archives are wrong. Darn ABC, wish they would put right dates down when buying archival info!

Yes, but at least we worked it out. 😃

But that also means that there is no playlist for the Ted Mulry episode in your archives (only saying 'yours' so people don't think i'm referring to the ABC archives) and there is no 9/3/1980 episode in your achives, so 9/2/80 needs to move to a newly created 9/3/1980 and create one for 10/2/80 and ask the ABC ''where's my ******* Ted Mulry playlist'?

Judie Tzuke wasn't mentioned or Steve Gilpin

10/02/1980 is listed in my archives, I just checked;

Year:1980
Date:10/02/1980
Show no:226
Summary:GUEST PRESENTER IS TED MULRY FROM TED MULRY GANG.
LIVE STUDIO ITEMS:
STOCKLEY SEE MASON 'LUCY'
EDITH BLISS 'IF IT'S LOVE YOU WANT'
JOHNNY CHESTER & HOTSPUR 'I LOVE YOU SO REBECCA'
TED MULRY GANG 'SAVE ME'
OVERSEAS ARTISTS MUSIC CLIPS:
QUEEN 'CRAZY LITTLE THING CALLED LOVE'
GARY NUMAN 'ARE FRIENDS ELECTRIC','CARS','COMPLEX'
LEIF GARRETT 'MEMORISE YOUR NUMBER'
BLONDIE 'UNION CITY BLUE'
CLIFF RICHARD 'CARRIE'
SPLIT ENZ 'I GOT YOU'
DISCO CHECK:
BONNIE POINTER 'HEAVEN MUST HAVE SENT YOU'
AMII STEWART 'JEALOUSY'
NICK STRAKER 'WALK IN THE PARK'
RITZ 'LOCOMOTION'
OVERSEAS HUMDRUM ITEMS:
HEAD BOYS 'THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME'
B-52'S 'ROCK LOBSTER'
BOOMTOWN RATS 'DIAMOND SMILES'
SPECIALS 'MESSAGE TO YOU RUDI'
TOP TEN ITEMS:
COLD CHISEL 'CHOIR GIRL'
MI-SEX 'COMPUTER GAMES'
JACKSONS 'BLAME IT ON THE BOOGIE'
JUDY TZUKE 'STAY WITH ME TILL DAWN'
STYX 'BABE'
COLLEEN HEWETT' DREAMING MY DREAMS OF YOU'
POLICE 'MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE'
BUGGLES 'VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR'
KC AND THE SUNSHINE BAND 'PLEASE DON'T GO'
RUPERT HOLMES 'ESCAPE'
MICHAEL JACKSON 'DON'T STOP TILL YOU GET ENOUGH'

Oh cool, so 10/2/80 is in your archives. Soz must have overlooked it, but yeah does confirm that the Ellen Foley ep is 9/3/1980. Yes, darn ABC, but now you only have to complain about the wrong '82 episode being played on Sat. night. Unless you also wanna tell them about the wrong Rock Arena episode too?

Oh cool, so 10/2/80 is in your archives. Soz must have overlooked it, but yeah does confirm that the Ellen Foley ep is 9/3/1980. Yes, darn ABC, but now you only have to complain about the wrong '82 episode being played on Sat. night. Unless you also wanna tell them about the wrong Rock Arena episode too?

Soz for posting twice....darn phone!

I wasn't going to complain when I call rage about what I thought was the wrong date for Ellen Foley.


I will be calling them about the 11th April, 1982 that was advertised and not played and I may as well mention the wrong date for Rock Arena as well which wasn't played on weekend 3 ....

Well hopefully they fix up one of their mistakes and pkay the right Countdown ep during the week.