The Go!! Show
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The Go!! Show

The Go!! Show (also known simply as Go!!) is an Australian popular music television series which was produced before a live audience and aired on Network Ten ATV-0, Melbourne, from August 1964 to August 1967, running one hour three nights a night.

It was produced by Willard-King Productions, DYT Productions. Over its run it was hosted, in turn, by Alan Field (1964), Ian Turpie (1964–66) and Johnny Young (1966–67) and Ronnie Burns

The series was known for having a regular roster of performers including The Strangers, a line of go-go dancers who appeared from week to week, Olivia Newton-John and Pat Carroll, Lynne Randell, Normie Rowe and The Twilights.

When the Melbourne-based Go Show!! premiered in August 1964, the other major competing television popular music show series Bandstand, was made by the Nine Network in Sydney. While that series had been an important outlet for the first wave of Australian rock'n'roll, it did not engage strongly with the so-called "Beat Boom" acts which emerged in the mid-1960s and onwards; Bandstand subsequently settled into a more mainstream musical variety format aimed at a broad general audience.

Unusually, the main competition for Go!! was broadcast on the same station: in December 1965, ATV-0 commissioned a second pop show, Kommotion, produced by the Willard-King organisation and hosted by popular Melbourne radio and TV personality Ken Sparkes. It was broadcast with five episodes each week day.

The Go!! Show focussed on the more sophisticated youth market and tended to concentrate on local solo performers, while Kommotion (which was in part modelled on the American series Shindig!) pursued a more group- and chart-oriented format, as well as featuring a troupe of go-go dancers and a regular team of young performers who mimed to the latest overseas hits.

The Go!! Show was made by DYT Productions, a production company founded and run by Australian musician Horrie Dargie with partners Arthur Young and Johnny Tillbrook, with producers Dennis Smith, Godfrey Phillips and Julian Jover working on Go!! specifically. It premiered in August 1964, just after the Beatles' Australian tour and just days after ATV-0's official opening. It was videotaped before a live audience, with early episodes being one hour long, screened three nights per week. In its third season, broadcast 1966–67, it was shortened to thirty minutes. Because national television networking was only just being established in Australia, The Go!! Show was only seen in Victoria for its first two years.

There were three hosts of Go!! during its run: the first was North-English comedian Alan Field, who had compered the July 1964 Beatles tour. Singer-actor Ian Turpie took over from Field from episode 26 until August 1966 when Turpie quit, stating that pursuing a career as an adult entertainer forced him to resign. Pop star and future Young Talent Time host Johnny Young took over.

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