Thursday Creek Mob, The

1 9 7 1 (Australia)
15 x 30 minute episodes

This comedy series from the Australian Broadcasting Commission recalled The Army Game or McHale’s Navy with the action taking place at an isolated peacetime Army camp “somewhere in the bush” where a bunch of misfits guard and manage supplies and surplus equipment under the command of beer-swigging Major Buckmaster (Red Moore) and his adjutant Lieutenant Dave Wigg (Max Phipps), a born worrier.

Bored with his career, Buckmaster’s consuming passion is pig-rearing. And woe betide anyone who comes between him and his pigs.

British Sergeant-Major Thomas Proudfoot (Mark Hashfield), late of Her Majesty’s Brigade of Guards, is a military man from top-to-toe

The men – led by Corporal Ginger Wiseman (John Derum) – are Privates Squizzy Taylor (Joe Hasham), Dim Sims (James Bowles) and Shorty MacGooghan (Serge Lazareff).

Much of the comedy in The Thursday Creek Mob stems from the efforts of the harrassed Sergeant-Major to stop Corporal Wiseman and his bumbling mates from compromising the Army. One of their indiscretions, for example, is hiring out Army jeeps to residents of the nearby town of Narragut.

Proudfoot’s problems multiply when his domineering wife (Doreen Warburton) arrives from England.

Sgt Major Thomas Proudfoot
Mark Hashfield
Major Colin Buckmaster
Red Moore
Lt Dave Wigg
Max Phipps
Corporal Ginger Wiseman
John Derum
Pvt Squizzy Taylor
Joe Hasham
Pvt Dim Sims
James Bowles
Pvt Shorty MacGoohan
Serge Lazareff
Mrs Proudfoot
Doreen Warburton

Episodes

Tom, Tom, The Piper’s Son | Taylor the Terror | Potatoes and Treachery | The Night Visitors | The Invisible Man | The Great Army Boot Bottleneck Affair | Whose Baby Are You? | The Beast in the Barrack Square | Will the Real Mrs Proudfoot Sit Down – and Shut Up! | The Chiming Watch | The Narragut Marriage Stakes | Involuntary volunteers | The Big Sleep | Miracle at Thursday Creek