SA Footy

Today is 31 years to the day since Franky Doyle said the immortal words 'She bumped into me' - the first episode of Prisoner aired on Channel 10.

Happy 31st Prisoner - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9blzSYPvnw

Great show, used to sit up and watch it every Tuesday and Thursday night, it made my night when it was a double episode occasionally!

A show I loved growing up and watched religiously in first run episodes, and then the repeats during the day in the 80's and early 90's. When Vera Bennett was in the show, schools complained about how many students nicknamed "difficult" female teachers "Vinegar T*ts", to be followed by the immortal Joan Ferguson and "The Freak" as a moniker (a name we used at school for one of our teachers).

Lizzie Birdsworth's real and faked turns with her "ticker"; Doreen Anderson sucking her thumb and clutching her teddy: Bea Smith and "The Press"; Judy Bryant wreaking revenge on Jock Stewart for killing Sharon Gilmour....and poor old Jim Fletcher, for so long the only male in a female dominated prison.

Great show - hopefully Ten bring it back in repeats if they start a new digital channel.

Sadly I'd be very surprised if Prisoner will ever be rerun on TV - particualrly now that the full series is available on DVD (thanks to Val Lehman, who pulled alot of strings I believe to get that project off the ground), which I own.

It hasn't been on in the UK (a Prisoner stronghold and where the official fan club - http://www.prisoner-cellblockh.co.uk/ - is based) since 2001 I think, and hasn't been on Australian TV since UKTV finished showing the full series in 2004. There are a lot of clips on YouTube (including full episodes) if you want a quick Prisoner fix though.

Last year I had the priviledge of going to both 30th anniversary celebrations - the first was run by Val Lehman at the actual studios in Nunnawadding (some of the prison windows are still there) which had about 30 of predominantly the early cast - Collette Mann (Doreen), Amanda Muggleton (Chrissie Latham), Patsy King (Governor Erica Davidson), Fiona Spence (Vinegar Tits), Gerard Maguire (Jim Fletcher), Carol Burns (Frankie), Jane Clifton (Margo Gaffney), Peta Toppano (Karen Travers), and Anne Phelan (Myra Desmond) amongst others. The second one was the fan club celebration in St Kilda with Maggie Kirkpatrick (The Freak - who was unable to attend Val's celebtration due to her Wicked commitments) along with Reylene Pearce (Phyllis Hunt), Maxine Kilingbatis (Bobbie Mitchell), Maggie Millar (Marie Winter), Louise Siverson (Lou Kelly) and Lois Collinder (Alice 'Lurch' Jenkins). Both were amazing events.

And Prisoner has been nominated for the Logies Hall of Fame

http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2010/03/pri ... -leak.html

I watched a few episodes as a kid, and a few of the repeats when they were shown in the afternoon a few years back.

I always wondered if they used the channel 10 Melbourne building as the outside shot of the prison. Another thing i thought was that a lot of the outside shots were filmed around the same place as they film some of the outside shots for Neighbours, some of the locations looked very familiar, with the same types of trees in the background.

GWW wrote:I watched a few episodes as a kid, and a few of the repeats when they were shown in the afternoon a few years back.

I always wondered if they used the channel 10 Melbourne building as the outside shot of the prison. Another thing i thought was that a lot of the outside shots were filmed around the same place as they film some of the outside shots for Neighbours, some of the locations looked very familiar, with the same types of trees in the background.

Basically Prisoner moved out and Neighbours moved it. In fact, a couple of years ago, a prison on Neighbours had a very familiar roof and side entrance