From unimpressed mums to Peter Garrett's butt: The Spicks and Specks stories you haven't heard
Over its 20-year history, and 308 episodes, Spicks and Specks (named after the 1966 Bee Gees song) has become one of Australian television's enduring success stories: a family-friendly quiz show that celebrated music and comedy, revelled in nostalgia and sparkled with the chemistry of its three stars, Adam Hills, Myf Warhurst and Alan Brough. It turned a generation of musicians and comedians into household names and still remains one of the few outlets for live music on TV. For the show's 20th anniversary season, Hills, Warhurst and Brough share their memories of the iconic music quiz show, with an assist from frequent guest stars Dave O'Neil, Hamish Blake, Denise Scott and Brian Mannix.
Adam Hills, host: It was pitched to me as a music quiz show that also celebrated Australian music and showed new music. But the thing that really got me was when I sent an outline of games for the show and I remember sitting on a plane back from London reading the outline for Substitute, and it was where you sing a well-known song using the words of an unrelated book. And I used the Qantas magazine, and thought of some songs, and went through it, and went, 'Oh, wow. I could see this could be a thing.' It was like a cross between a trivia quiz and Countdown.
Myf Warhurst, team captain: I got a call at Triple J, where I was working, and they said, 'Can you come for an audition?' I thought it sounded like a bit of fun and I said yes to everything back in those days! I turned up for the audition, and I literally got a call within a day. I hadn't met you [Adam]. I knew Alan. And then I was like, 'Oh, what's the show?'
Alan Brough, team captain: Well, approached is a big word for how it happened. I think [TV producer] Anthony Watt called me and said, 'I'm involved in a show about music. Do you want to do it?' And I went, 'Yeah.' And that was all I knew.
Do you remember watching the first episode go to air?
Myf Warhurst: It was a very strange experience because I'd not had any mainstream television experience prior to this, and it was like a dream of mine, growing up in the country, [to be on ABC TV] because we only had the ABC. It was like, 'Oh, I've made it.' But then I spoke to mum on the phone and she said, 'Yes, it's very good, but I hope you recorded that on VHS, just for your files.' She thought it was so bad! Mum loves the show, by the way. Nance is the biggest fan.
Alan Brough: My mum, when she came over to Australia [from New Zealand], she said, 'I saw that show you're on.' And I said, 'Oh.' And she said, 'Thank god all the useless stuff you know, it's come in handy.'
Myf Warhurst: It's often been compared to overseas shows like Never Mind the Buzzcocks, which was much more competitive. They take the mickey out of some artists, but we never did that. We were very supportive and played very nicely with everybody.
What was it like being a guest on the show?
Denise Scott, comedian: I know f--- all about music. Every time, including an episode I just did recently, I feel sick because of my complete lack of knowledge of music. I keep thinking, 'What am I doing here?' But it did give me confidence about telling what I thought were pretty boring stories, they made everyone laugh.
Hamish Blake, TV presenter: [On my first episode] I knew – and know – very little about music trivia, a deficiency I was assured wouldn't be a problem. But the fact it's a show that's 100 per cent about music made me nervous of that assurance.
Dave O'Neil, comedian, who has appeared more than 60 times, more than any other guest: It was a perfect show for me because I don't have that much knowledge about sport or current affairs, but music, I'm going to be up for it.
Brian Mannix, lead singer of the Uncanny X-Men: The first time I went on, I had a couple of beers. I think I was on about six times before I was ever on the winning team.
Hamish Blake: I was almost exclusively on Myf's team and have a lot of fond memories of celebratory high-fives after looking in each other's panicked eyes and pulling answers out of thin air that somehow were correct. Also, being on Myf's team gave me a front-row seat to appreciate Alan doing his thing and being able to name the cab driver who dropped Freddie Mercury to Live Aid or some other wild fact.
Denise Scott: They always put a question in that they assume you might know. For me, it'll be about Julie Andrews. But otherwise, I must admit, I do try and give a bit of time to looking at YouTube clips of various artists. I don't even know what to Google. I don't even know what name to search for. And then I think, 'Who am I kidding?'
Brian Mannix: The show has been really good to me. I talked to [musician] Wilbur Wilde about this the other day, because our mothers have passed away, and I said the good thing is we get to see our mothers every Mother's Day because me and Wilbur had our mums on the show for the Mother's Day episode and we get to see it in repeats.
Were you ever starstruck?
Adam Hills: My favourite was Weird Al Yankovic because I was a comedy nerd. I was losing my mind. And he's one of the few people that have been on the show that I've kept in touch with. I've caught up with him. He's met my kids, and he still sends me a birthday email every year.
Alan Brough: Lloyd Cole from Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. [Producer] Anthony Watt knew I loved him, so he didn't tell me he was coming on. I walked into the green room [and saw him] and I went, 'F---' and then walked out, had a few breaths, came back in, and I said, 'I'm really sorry.' And he said, 'It's happened before.'
Myf Warhurst: For me, growing up, Countdown on the ABC was all we had. We didn't have much and no internet, obviously, because I'm ancient. So when all these Australian pop stars that I grew up adoring came on the show, it was wild. I did shows with Sharon O'Neill from New Zealand, and Jane Clifton from Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons and Renee Geyer.
Dave O'Neil: I met Peter Garrett from Midnight Oil, which was great because I showed him my Year 10 folder, which had his butt on the front. It freaked him out a little bit. And because I was a big fan of Oz rock, they started putting me with difficult people, like Chris Bailey from the Saints. He was really grumpy. I remember Jim Keays, from the Masters Apprentices, said to me once, 'Adam's a busy person, he hosts this and The Gruen Transfer.' And I said, 'That's Wil Anderson.' He thought Wil Anderson and Adam Hills were the same person. At that point he'd been on the show four or five times.
Denise Scott: I had an interesting – oh, I can't say who it was because it was an American performer, a quite well-known musician – and he talked to himself the whole show so quietly and no one else knew except me. It was a mental health issue.
OK, who was the worst at Substitute?
Alan Brough: It was Hamish [Blake] doing Eye of the Tiger. He did all of the song and then he stopped, and I think Adam said, 'Hamish, can you tell us what it is?' And he said, ' Eye of the Tiger.' And you may have said, 'Are you sure?' And then he did it again, and we still didn't know what it was.
Hamish Blake: Now that I think about it, that segment is literally for professional singers so, of course, I was the No. 1 worst.
Denise Scott: I did have to do Substitute, but interestingly, I only ever got asked to do it once…
Brian Mannix: The last time I did the show, I was dressed up in a Taylor Swift ballerina outfit. I don't often get to do that.
In 2011, Hills, Warhurst and Brough decided it was time to leave the show. It was briefly rebooted for one season in 2014, with a new host and team captains, but it didn't last. Do they ever regret calling it quits in 2011?
Myf Warhurst: I thought it was perfect timing because we'd done it for seven years and told all our stories. It meant people got to miss us, and we got to step away and realise how much joy the show had given us. It's one of the sweetest gigs for Alan and I, because we just turned up, basically. We sit back, knowing that we get to talk about what we love, meet people we love and hang out with our friends that we love.
Adam Hills: You don't realise what you've got until you finish it. My manager had a really good phrase for it, he said, 'It's important to go off and do other things and realise that you're not magic.'
Alan Brough: He's wrong because you got even more famous after we stopped. So you are magic.
Dave O'Neil: My mum would watch [the repeats] in the nursing home and then ring me up and say, 'Did you dye your hair? I saw you on TV last night.' And I was like, 'Mum, that episode was 15 years old!'
Who made the first move to get the band back together in 2018?
Alan Brough: I made the first move once. It didn't work out and I didn't do it ever again…
Adam Hills: It was the ABC wanting a one-off Aus music special. As soon as we all walked into the make-up room, it was like we'd never been away from each other. And I think, probably, at the end of that episode, there was talk of maybe we could do a couple of specials, and then, we could do a small series…
Do you have another 20 years in you?
Alan Brough: I don't think I've got 20 years of life.
Myf Warhurst: We were talking about it today. We might do one in the nursing home. A reality show, maybe.
Adam Hills: Music is constantly refreshing itself, and especially now with Spotify and the internet and all that kind of stuff. So as long as there's more music to talk about, then I think we could probably still talk about it.
Alan Brough: There's a picture of the three of us, just as you go into the make-up room, and when we first came back, my daughter, who was born in 2011, walked past that at the age of 10 or something, and went, 'Oh, Myf and Adam look good, but you have got much older.'
Adam Hills: We're like a three-part harmony. If you look at it in a musical sense, we each bring something different. And when you have all those three voices on their own, the voices are fantastic, but all those three voices together, it's bigger than the sum of the parts.
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