Number 96

1 9 7 2 – 1 9 7 7 (Australia)
1218 x 30 minute episodes episodes

Number 96 debuted on Monday 13 March 1972, with the proclamation, “Tonight at 8.30 pm, television loses its virginity”, and became the most popular programme on Australian TV within one year, screening every weeknight in all capital cities and on almost every regional station.

The sex and sin soapie from Cash-Harmon Productions created a sensation and became a ratings juggernaut because it dealt graphically with homosexuality, adultery, drug and alcohol addiction, promiscuity, domestic violence, prostitution, insanity, rape, and lots and lots and LOTS of sex – hence why it was shown in an “adult” time slot (five nights a week at 8:30 pm).

The series told the story of a group of neighbours living in a (fictional) block of apartments at 96 Lindsay Street in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Paddington, with two shops downstairs – a delicatessen and a wine bar (formerly a chemist shop).

All actual external shots were filmed outside an apartment block at 83 Moncur Street in the Sydney suburb of Woollahra. All internal scenes were filmed at Sydney’s Channel Ten studios.

Best of all were the storylines relating to the “knicker-snipper”¹ (who terrorised female inhabitants of the block of flats by snipping pieces from their underwear with a pair of scissors) and the “pantyhose strangler”². Both scenarios kept viewers tuned in for months – as did the “hooded rapist”³ storyline.

Abigail (pictured above with Joe Hasham) – as the pouting and virginal Bev Houghton – became a household name overnight as the show’s premier sex symbol, while Elaine Lee, as Vera Collins, was destined to be unlucky with a long string of sexual partners.

Lee also created controversy when she was featured in a scene depicting a black mass ceremony (also featuring the former darling of Melbourne television, Toni Lamond). Australian viewing audiences were unaccustomed to seeing such strange rituals!

Number 96 featured Australian TV’s first full-frontal nude – by Miss Hemingway (Deborah Gray) – and made history by introducing the first images of gay males on Australian screens (at a time when homosexuality was illegal across the country) via the relationship between young solicitor Don Finlayson (Joe Hasham) and his flatmate, old movie fan Dudley “Duddles” Butterfield (Chard Hayward).

The show was careful to paint Don in a positive light, and by depicting a likeable, relatable gay man (often dating and in love) at a time when the media demonised them as perverts, Number 96 helped change opinions and fuel conversations throughout Australia’s living rooms.

Dudley was eventually revealed to be bisexual and embarked on relationships with women until he was shot dead in 1977 (after Hayward decided to leave the series).

But there was much more to the series than just sex. In particular, there was a great deal of comedy, mostly centred around the scatty concierge and “Why wasn’t I told?” queen of the malapropism, Dorrie Evans (Pat McDonald, who won the 1974 Gold Logie for her portrayal).

Other memorable characters at No. 96 were: Hungarian shopkeeper Aldo Godolfus  (played by English-born Johnny Lockwood) and his Russian wife Roma (Phillippa Baker); dorky Arnold Feather (Jeff Kevin), who eventually married nurse Patti Olsen (Pamela Garrick); Dorrie’s widowed lodger and best friend Flo Patterson (Bunney Brooke) and her budgie, Mr Perky; whingeing Lancashire migrant Alf Sutcliffe (James Elliott) and his long-suffering wife, Lucy (Liz Kirkby); wine bar proprietors Les and Norma Whittaker (Gordon McDougall and Sheila Kennelly); and the MacDonald family – prissy town clerk Reg (English-born actor Mike Dorsey) who was called “Daddy” by his wife Edie, (Wendy Blacklock), who he called “Mummy” and their adopted daughter, Marilyn (South African-born Frances Hargreaves).

Number 96 became the #1 show on Australian TV, but by 1975 the show had slipped to sixth position, and the producers pulled out all stops to lure the viewers back. Having already exhausted most storylines (bigamy, rape, Nazi war criminals etc), it was decided to “get rid of them”.

The writers decided to kill off some of the regular characters by having a bomb go off in the block of flats. The multi-viewpoint split-screen effects they used for the final moments before the explosion as Les Whittaker ran through the block, vainly attempting to warn everyone were ground-breaking at the time, although seem extremely crude in retrospect.

The bomb blast – meant to blow the cobwebs off the series – added an extra $70,000 in production costs. Seventy detonators were used while filming the scenes, along with gallons of fake blood.

As the season cliffhanger, it was left open-ended who had actually died and who survived, relying on viewers’ letters to decide the fate of the characters. The identities of the dead remained a mystery for weeks.

Eventually, shopkeepers Roma and Aldo Godolfus and inventor Les Whittaker were found to have moved on to more heavenly accommodation, along with Miles Cooper (Scott Lambert).

These were some of the favourite and longest-running characters (which was a brave move), and more deaths came later in the “Wine Bar Siege”

Killing off Les Whittaker proved to be a mistake, so producers brought Gordon McDougall back from the dead as his own long-lost Scottish brother, Frank, and devised a romance between him and Les’ widow, Norma.

Storylines became increasingly unrealistic: For example, in the space of just eight months, Don Finlayon’s ward Debbie Chester (Dina Mann) became a drug addict, attempted prostitution (unsuccessfully), found out she was illegitimate, saw both her parents taken by a man-eating shark, was taken hostage by gangsters, found a murder victim, survived a murder attempt, nearly burned to death and had her sister go insane . . .

After more than five years and 1200 episodes, Number 96 finally shut the door on its groundbreaking run, with the final episode airing on 11 August 1977. The long-running series ended with “Mummy” Edie MacDonald beginning her latest novel. She sits at the table in her flat, puts a blank sheet of paper in her typewriter and begins typing:

“Once upon a time, there was a building called Number 96 . . .”

A 1974 feature film of Number 96 was memorable for (amongst other things) the rape of Vera Collins (again). This time by a bikie gang.

Tragically, all the black-and-white episodes of Number 96 were wiped because there was thought to be no market for them after colour TV was introduced in Australia.

In 1980, an American version of Number 96 was made, starring Ellen Travolta and Greg Mullavey. Produced as a comedy by NBC, the show struggled to overcome the United States’ strict nudity laws and a general lack of viewer interest.

The show was axed after just four episodes,

Dorrie Evans
Pat McDonald
Herb Evans
Ron Shand
Flo Patterson
Bunney Brooke
Weppo Smith
Roger Ward
Aldo Godolfus
Johnny Lockwood
Roma Godolfus (Lubinski)
Phillippa Baker
Rose Godolfus
Vivienne Garrett
Arnold Feather/Chook Feather
Jeff Kevin
Patti Feather (Olsen)
Pamela Garrick
Giovanni Lenzi 
Harry Michaels
Les/Frank Whittaker
Gordon McDougall
Norma Whittaker
Sheila Kennelly
Gary Whittaker
Mike Ferguson
Trixie O’Toole 
Jan Adele
Don Finlayson 
Joe Hasham
Dudley Butterfield 
Chard Hayward
Jaja Gibson 
Anya Saleky
Amanda Von Pappenburg 
Carol Raye
Maggie Cameron
Bettina Welch
Carol Finlayson
Paula Duncan
Vera Collins 
Elaine Lee
Harry Collins 
Norman Yemm
Jack Sellars 
Tom Oliver
Alf Sutcliffe 
James Elliott
Lucy Sutcliffe 
Liz Kirkby
Reg MacDonald (“Daddy”)
Mike Dorsey
Edie MacDonald (“Mummy”)
Wendy Blacklock
Marilyn MacDonald 
Frances Hargreaves
Bev Houghton 
Abigail (1)
Vicki Raymond (2)
Miss Hemingway 
Deborah Gray
Lorelei
Josephine Knur
Warwick Thompson 
Kit Taylor
Simon Carr 
John Orcsik
Helen Eastwood 
Briony Behets
Mark Eastwood
Martin Harris
Chad Farrell 
Ronne Arnold
Muriel Thompson 
Rowena Wallace
Henri P Cobb/Hope Jackson
Chelsea Brown
Eileen Chester 
Patti Crocker
Debbie Chester 
Dina Mann
Jane Chester
Suzanne Church
Babs 
Penny Ramsay
Helen Sheridan 
Carmen Duncan (1)
Jill Forster (2)
Jill Sheridan
Candy Raymond
Andy Marshall 
Peter Adams
Alan Cotterell
Mark Hashfield
Miles Cooper 
Tony Allyn
Vicki Dawson
Kay Powell
Dorothy Dunlop 
Diana McLean
Georgina Carter
Susannah Piggott
Opal Wilkinson
Nat Nixon
Cliff Stevens
Vincent Gil
Prim Primrose 
Pamela Gibbons
Rhonda Jackson
Justine Saunders
Tracy Wilson 
Chantal Contouri
Sue Marshall
Anne Lambert
Alex Lederer
Harry Harris
Dr Julian Myers
Lew Luton
Ros Halliday 
Joanna Lockwood
Theresa 
Julianne Newbould
Grant Chandler
Michael Howard
Diana Moore
Rebecca Gilling
Lenny Fisher
Terry Peck
Liz Chalmers
Margaret Laurence
Earl Goodman
Richard Lupino
Mick Milligan
Peter Berg
Joshua 
Shane Porteous

Video

Footnotes (Contain SPOILERS)

¹ The knicker snipper turned out to be Janie Somers’ boyfriend, Alan Cotterell (played by Abigail‘s real-life fiancé at the time, Mark Hashfield).

² Nurse Tracy Wilson (Chantal Contouri) was eventually identified as the pantyhose strangler when she was discovered by Marilyn MacDonald (Frances Hargreaves) late one night in the local laundrette.

³ After a few residents are mistakenly believed to be the hooded rapist (including Dudley Butterfield and Giovanni Lenzi) it is ultimately revealed to be Lenny Fisher (Terry Peck), the weedy and nervous employee of Norma’s Bar.