Kath and Kim “cancelled” before it began
Kath & Kim creators have revealed that the ABC almost didn’t let the show go ahead just days before shooting started.
With the show’s 20th anniversary coming up in the form of Kath & Kim: Our Effluent Life, a legion of fans all around the world are gearing up for the foxy ladies of Fountain Lake.
However, the four seasons, a 2005 telemovie Da Kath & Kim Code and the 2012 movie, Kath & Kimderella almost didn’t come to be because of the ABC.
Gina Riley, who plays Kim in the show revealed that the ABC almost pulled the plug on the show before shooting began.
“As I remember it, it was the Friday afternoon and we were going to pre-production the following Monday and we got a call saying, ‘It’s no longer the direction we want to go in,’” Riley recalled to The Age.
“We were completely rocked, but we thought we’ve got a pretty watertight deal memo. And they were like, ‘We’re doing you a favour; you don’t want to do this to yourselves.’
“And then we went, ‘OK, we’ll go somewhere else.’ And they said, ‘Oh, no, you can’t take it anywhere else.’ So that was when we went, ‘You know what? This is very unjust. And we’re going to fight it.’”
Riley and her co-star/writer Jane Turner weren’t taking no for an answer and “fought back the decision”.
“We were very determined to make the show we had pitched, and in reality we didn’t stop writing and working on it. It was too awful so we just pretended it wasn’t happening.”
Soon after the bad news, Australian television producer Sandra Levy was appointed as head of TV at the ABC and she was “sorting out” the series.
Luckily for them, they were able to sort it out because ABC was committed to the project but wanted to tune out some fine details.
Kath & Kim: Our Effluent Life will show over two nights on Channel 7 and 7Plus for the 20th anniversary.
Creators Gina Riley and Jane Turner along with stars Magda Szubanski, Glenn Robbins and Peter Rowsthorn will make an appearance along with a star studded cast.
There will be special appearances from Kylie Minogue, Michael Bublé, Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting, Eric Bana, Mick Molloy, Tony Martin, Richard E Grant, Barry Humphries, and even a former prime minister.
The reboot will include never-before-seen moments as well as hilarious bloopers from the archives of more than 1000 tapes and 240 shoot days.
There will also be a tribute to the late cricketer and Sharon’s favourite cricketer, Shane Warne, who passed away earlier in the year.
Image: ABC