Adventure Island (TV series)

Adventure Island
Genre	Children's television
Created by	Godfrey Philipp John Michael Howson
Country of origin	Australia
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	7
No. of episodes	1,175
Release
Original network	ABC
Picture format	Black-and-white, PAL
Original release	11 September 1967 – 22 December 1972

Adventure Island is an Australian television series for children which screened on the ABC from 11 September 1967 to 22 December 1972 (repeats of the 1969-1972 episodes ran from 1973–1976). It was jointly created by Godfrey Philipp, who produced the series, and actor-writer John Michael Howson, who also co-starred in the show. It typically aired from Monday to Friday and each story would stretch across a full week, reaching a resolution on Friday.

Adventure Island was a joint production of Godfrey Philipp Productions and the Australian Broadcasting Commission, pre-recorded on videotape at the ABC's studios in Ripponlea, Melbourne. It is believed to be the first program made by the ABC in collaboration with an outside production company. Production was usually five weeks ahead of broadcast. It was a pantomime-style series set in the kingdom of Diddley-Dum-Diddley. The show was hosted by Nancy Cato (not the noted author) from 1967 to 1968 (her final pre-recorded episodes aired at the beginning of 1969) and Sue Donovan from 1969 to 1972.

Regular characters included:

Other characters were played by guest artists such as Vivean Gray (playing Mother Sparkle, who became Mother Tinkle—more famously Mrs Jessup in The Sullivans and Mrs Mangle in Neighbours), Patsy King, Brian Hannan, Frank Rich, Mary Hardy, Angela O'Toole and Lindsay Edwards.

Following the May 1967 announcement of the imminent axing of the highly popular Independent Television System children's programme The Magic Circle Club, the ABC immediately approached its producers with a proposal to immediately take over production of the show. This was very quickly thwarted when TEN's then owner Reg Ansett refused to relinquish his network's rights to the show's name and premise, forcing Philipp and Howson to devise a lookalike.

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