Debuting on 4 February 1967 and airing on Saturday nights, this teenage pop show from NZBC was a fast-paced, tightly scripted production. It was screened live to the Auckland AKTV2 area, and videotapes were sent to the other three main centres (Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin) for viewing a week later.
The show was packed with pop-art set designs, flashy special effects, groovy graphics, and choreographed musicians, and was particularly famous for its resident team of go-go dancers in risqué short skirts who danced frenetically on the multi-level stage.
The original dancers were Trish Hodson, Jill Lewington, Christine Bradcock, Jill Lewington, Christeen Shaw, Diane Dower, and Anita Marr.
Attrition was high, and other dancers were added throughout the series, including Vicki Nelson, 16-year-old model and dancer Barbara Dean and 15-year-old schoolgirl Trudy Klink.
Dorothea “Dolly” Zaymes (pictured at left with some of the dancers from C’mon 68) choreographed the show.
Shane, Suzanne Donaldson (The Chicks), Ray Columbus, Judy Donaldson (The Chicks), Tommy Ferguson, and Ray Woolf
Heavily influenced by British music shows like Ready Steady Go!and swinging London street culture, the show was hosted by popular radio personality Peter Sinclair, who kept things moving at a breakneck pace.
Peter Sinclair
The show turned a core group of resident Kiwi soloists and groups into household names, including Mr Lee Grant, who became a teenage sensation in 1967; Sandy Edmonds, the British-born pop singer and model who became the definitive Kiwi mod pop-girl icon of the 1960s; The Chicks (a teenage singing sister duo of Sue and Judy Donaldson); Shane (real name Trevor Hales); and Ray Woolf.
Sandy Edmonds
Lesser-known groups also got valuable exposure through the show, including the Hi-Revving Tongues, The Human Instinct, Larry’s Rebels, and Le Frame.
The Chicks
The Keil Isles were the tight resident backing band that performed the show’s snappy, signature theme song.
Peter Sinclair also took the resident cast on massive, highly successful seven-week national concert tours across New Zealand.
With the landscape of music shifting rapidly, and an increasing trend towards heavier rock music and song lyrics alluding to sex and drugs, C’mon could no longer be easily packaged into a family-friendly, choreographed variety show and called it a day on 20 August 1969.
It was replaced by the more relaxed variety series, Happen Inn – also hosted by Peter Sinclair.
Sadly, only two episodes of C’mon have survived in the archives.
The show was packed with pop-art set designs, flashy special effects, groovy graphics, and choreographed musicians, and was particularly famous for its resident team of go-go dancers in risqué short skirts who danced frenetically on the multi-level stage.
