Cirrus@Austlit

According to Don Storey, in his Classic Australian Television, I've Married A Bachelor was the first sit-com produced by the ABC's new Television Entertainment unit (formed out of the Light Entertainment department in 1967). The program centred on newlyweds Peter and Molly Prentiss, the latter played by June Thody, who has previously had roles in My Brother Jack and The Mavis Bramston Show. The tension in the program came from Peter's assumption that his bachelor occupations of poker, sport, and pub visits could continue unimpeded after his marriage.

The program received mixed responses from critics, but was successful with audiences and sold well overseas, including to England, Scotland, New Zealand, and Sweden. However, the ABC decided not to renew the program after its second series.

Storey concludes that 'I've Married A Bachelor was an enjoyable series. The comedy had a nice, understated feel, and it was free of the syrupy, sentimental moralising that plagues many U.S. sit-coms.'

Australia's first successful sit-com, My Name's McGooley's - What's Yours? blended domestic and social realism in an exploration of working-class Australian life.

According to Don Storey's summation of the program in his Classic Australian Television, My Name's McGooley - What's Yours? focused on

working class battler Wally Stiller and his wife Rita, who live with Rita's father Dominic McGooley, a crusty old pensioner. Their house is in Balmain, an inner suburb of Sydney that was then still largely working class. In classic sit-com tradition, early episodes centred on the farcical situations that McGooley blundered into, which were exploited for their comedy potential. As the series progressed, Wally Stiller became the protagonist, and the emphasis shifted to social issues within the family structure, with McGooley reacting to Wally's middle-aged ocker outlook on life.

Created by Ralph Peterson, who originally intended the program for British commerical network ITV, My Name's McGooley made use of actors who were already under contract to ATN-7 (both Gordon Chater and Noeline Brown, for example, had been working on The Mavis Bramston Show), as well as attracting John Meillon back from England to take the role of Wally.

Highly successful with audiences from the outset, My Name's McGooley ran for nearly ninety episodes before Gordon Chater left the program (and moved to a new vehicle, The Gordon Chater Show, still on ATN-7). With McGooley absent, the program was heavily re-tooled and re-invented as Rita and Wally.