High-profile Sydney radio DJ Doug Mulray finally decided he’d had enough of breakfast radio in January 1994 (after 12 years) and left his high-rating show at Triple M, handing the timeslot to former Brisbane DJ Rob Duckworth.
He moved to Sydney’s Channel 7 for this Saturday night chat show.
Debuting on 2 July 1994, the live show was like an overstocked toy cupboard of gimmicks, props and other bits of business.
Mulray infantilised his guests – dressing them up in painter’s smocks and getting them involved in painting sessions (with resident artist Alison Radic) like kids in kindergarten, and tucking them up in bed for a ribald bedtime story-reading session at the end of the show – and generally behaved with the gleeful, arbitrary authority of the child who rules the playground. It was his show, and he could do whatever he liked.
Uncle Doug was joined on the show by his sidekick, “Rocket” Reg Prasaad (who had been a key member of Mulray’s breakfast radio show in the late 80s and the 90s and was the butt of many of Doug’s jokes) and announcer Max Rowley.
Guests on the show included Julian Clary, motorcycle racer Wayne Gardner, Richard Clapton, Bryan Brown, Rachel Ward, Buddy Greco, Guy Pearce, cricketer Ian Botham, Doug Parkinson, Ken Done, actor Gary Sweet, KC & The Sunshine Band, Grace Knight, Rex Hunt, Peter Brock, Smokey Dawson, hypnotist Peter Powers, James Morrison, Gina Jeffreys, Tamam Shud, and a “tired and emotional” Peter Phelps.
Following a break in the new year, Doug appeared in a series of specials (The Doug Mulray SlideNight) for Channel 7 – in which he showed considerable talent as an interviewer of various Hollywood personalities – before returning for a second series of Mulray in June 1995.
After just one episode of the new 13-part series, he walked out without warning, with Channel 7 issuing a statement saying they regretted his decision, adding that the decision had nothing to do with the appointment that week of Mr Kerry Stokes as the network’s new chairman.
Doug Mulray died from liver cancer on 30 March 2023, aged 71.
Host
Doug Mulray Assistant
Rocket” Reg Prasaad Announcer
Max Rowley
Debuting on 2 July 1994, the live show was like an overstocked toy cupboard of gimmicks, props and other bits of business.
Guests on the show included Julian Clary, motorcycle racer Wayne Gardner, Richard Clapton, Bryan Brown, Rachel Ward, Buddy Greco, Guy Pearce, cricketer Ian Botham, Doug Parkinson, Ken Done, actor Gary Sweet, KC & The Sunshine Band, Grace Knight, Rex Hunt, Peter Brock, Smokey Dawson, hypnotist Peter Powers, James Morrison, Gina Jeffreys, Tamam Shud, and a “tired and emotional” Peter Phelps.
