person or book cover
The Rudd family homestead at Snake Gully (screen cap from opening credits)
form y separately published work icon Snake Gully with Dad and Dave series - publisher   film/TV  
Adaptation of On Our Selection! 'Steele Rudd' , 1899 selected work short story
Issue Details: First known date: 1972... 1972 Snake Gully with Dad and Dave
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Reuniting script-writer Gordon Chater and Ralph Peterson (who had previously successfully worked together on the highly successful sit-com My Name's McGooley - What's Yours?), Snake Gully with Dad and Dave was a modernised and updated version of Steele Rudd's popular characters--albeit a version that, as Don Storey notes in his Classic Australian Television, was based more on the 1930s' radio version than on the original novels.

Just as the radio version had updated the setting to a contemporary 1930s, Peterson's television scripts updated the setting again to the early 1970s, moving Dad and Dave further away from the late nineteenth-century selector culture of Rudd's original narratives. In this version, then, Dad and Dave are farmers on a small, struggling farm.

Despite these alterations, Storey notes that 'ATN-7 held high hopes for the series. The same combination of Ralph Peterson and Gordon Chater that worked on the McGooley series, couple with well-known and liked traditional Australian characters should have guaranteed success.'

It did not. The series was poorly received by both critics and viewers. Storey concludes that 'Budget limitations notwithstanding, the fact remains that a major shortcoming of the series was that the characters did not work well in a modern setting. It can be argued that if the traditional setting could not have been maintained, then the series should not have been made at all.'

Exhibitions

8018483
8014658

Includes

1.3
form y separately published work icon Husbandry Is Not Just a Golden Ring Ralph Peterson , Sydney : Australian Television Network , 1972 25699467 1972 single work film/TV Sydney : Australian Television Network , 1972

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Last amended 21 Nov 2014 15:17:43
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