Happening ’72 ended with Johnny Farnham and a coffin

Johnny Farnham was the last person to sing on Happening ’72, as three years of Happening shows came to an end.

He sang the Stevie Wonder song For Once in My Life on the final episode of the weekly pop music program, produced at ATV-0’s iconic Nunawading studios. That was on 11 November 1972.

Happening ’70 began in March 1972 with singer Ross D Wyllie as host. It followed a similar Saturday program called Uptight, also hosted by Wyllie and also produced at Channel 0. Singer Jeff Phillips took over as compere for Happening ’71 and Happening ’72. Johnny Young filled-in for a month in the middle of 1972.

As he finished the song on that last-ever episode, Johnny was joined on stage by Phillips and other program regulars and guests: Issi Dye, Allison Durbin, reigning Queen of Pop Colleen Hewett, Debbie Byrne, Hans Poulsen, Ronnie Burns, music reviewer Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum, members of the crew, producer Lesley Shaw… and a coffin.

Here is video courtesy of Johnny Young Music and the National Film and Sound Archive:

From the YouTube channel: ‘NFSA Film Australia’. BaG is not responsible for the upload of this audio/video to YouTube or its content.

The video was uncovered in 2022 when Jeff Phillips stumbled across an old reel in his Melbourne home. He took it to local National Film and Sound Archive curator Simon Smith who had the tape restored and its contents digitised.

Sadly, Happening ’72 (0-10 Network) wasn’t the only such television music program to end in 1972. Also axed were Bandstand (Nine Network) and Hit Scene (ABC). This was forced, in part, by moves by the Musicians’ Union to have bands perform live, rather than the cheaper and less complex option of them miming to their records, which also just sounded better.

There were no new music programs until Countdown emerged in late 1974. And a fun bit of trivia: Johnny Farnham also opened the first edition of Countdown to be broadcast in colour in March 1975.

Jeff Phillips performs Wrong or Right to open the last episode of Happening ’72: