Laugh if you want, but I've cleared my schedule for the Logies. I always do.
Where else can you find the chaos of live television colliding with the earnestness of a school speech night? What other TV event so awkwardly melds glamour, pride and cringe? It's like an extremely rowdy dinner party — one for TV's who-who that just happens to be watched by more Australian viewers than the Oscars.
First held in 1959 as the TV Week Star Awards, from 1960 onwards it has officially been known as the TV Week Logie Awards. Inaugural Star of The Year winner Graham Kennedy suggested the epithet as a tribute to TV inventor John Logie Baird, and the name stuck.
TV Week's enduring association points to the fact that the Logies are a "people's choice" award, for better or worse. Much like a United States presidential election, said choice rests on the shoulders of those who can be bothered (or mobilised) to vote.
Australia doesn't have an Emmys-equivalent award (that is, exclusive to television; the AACTAs award TV alongside film), so the Logies tries to have it both ways, with its "Most Outstanding" industry-voted awards nestled alongside the viewer-voted categories.
And while even peer-voted awards shows have their considerable shortcomings — exhibit a: #OscarsSoWhite — there's arguably a limit to how much prestige a Most Outstanding award can offer when it comes from the same cabinet as the Gold Logie.
Despite it all, there's something enduringly endearing about the Logies.
The inevitable trademark live television snafus, long running jokes about John Wood, rambling speeches and increasingly loose cuts to the audience as the night wears ever on: it's all a rich, silly tapestry.
It's also reliably popular with viewers. According to MediaWeek, 2022's ceremony was a hit for Nine: 885,000 viewers watched the ceremony, while 826,000 watched the red carpet arrivals. This year, the Logies will be broadcast on Seven, who'll be looking to continue the show's ratings success, albeit with a more locally focused line-up of guests.
Before they do, here's a look back at some of the Logies most notable moments.
And now, our musical guests…
No awards show is complete without a musical number or two, and the Logies has offered us the good, the bad and the ugly in that department.
First, the worsts: Michael Bublé's "great in the room", atonal in the living room 2013 effort and Chris Lilley's Ricky Wong performing 'Indigeridoo' in 2006 surely rank among the all-timers. (The light going out of Jana Wendt's eyes as she introduces Lilley is truly devastating … then there's the performance.)
If you dare to sink to those depths and re-watch, let your weary spirit be buoyed by Destiny's Child (yes, really!) performing 'Bootylicious' in 2002.
Many an international guest has rocked up, eaten the rider, then phoned in a lip-sync, but Kelly, Michelle and Beyoncé more than handle this with a live version of their monster hit.
As heavenly as Queen Bey and co were, the true spirit of the Logies can perhaps best be summed up by the duet between legends John Farnham and Tom Jones in 1993. Performing, for some reason, 'It's A Long Way To The Top', it's somehow both transcendently daggy and improbably cool.
Tom Gleeson peers behind the Logies curtain
The Hard Quiz host has a chequered Logies history. In 2018, he led a successful social media campaign to get Grant Denyer over the line as Gold Logie winner.
Despite his heartfelt speech, when Denyer took the gong there was much gnashing of teeth about how the venerable Gold Logie had been tarnished by a prank. Even Russell Crowe had something to say about it all.
In 2019, Gleeson launched his successful #Gleeson4Gold campaign on The Weekly with Charlie Pickering, which led to his scorched earth acceptance speech.
It was hilarious to watch the opprobrium from TV personalities about Gleeson's having made a mockery of the Gold Logie, given that — however cynical his campaign — he had played by the rules: get loads and loads of people to vote for you so you win.
Gleeson's gag in his opening monologue about the 2019 Logies being "the last-ever Logies" came home to roost in 2020 when … well, you know.
Fly-in fly-out celebrities
While the Logies might be a popular choice award, they are also a TV show themselves. As a result, from the show's inception its various producers have relied on the razzle dazzle of imported guests to draw in viewers.
This has led to plenty of awkward moments, but none were as caustic as Joan Rivers' 2006 appearance. Trotted out with the inevitable Richard Wilkins, Rivers refused to play ball.
She shredded the Logies and the notion of a celebrity guest ("I don't know why the f— I'm here!"), skewered Australia's television elite and finally tossed her specially-created pink Logie over her shoulder like she was sifting through a yard sale.
Bert's monologues
Bert Newton hosted the awards 19 times, appeared as presenter on many more occasions (in both cases becoming enmeshed in countless infamous Logies "moments"), and won four Gold Logies.
Later in his career, Moonface would reliably rock up to present one of the big gongs and freestyle for a bit. He always seemed to relish the opportunity to do a risqué tight five (or so), no doubt surprising those younger viewers for whom he was only known as the daggy midday television guy.
Things were no different during what would be his final Logies appearance, at 2018's awards. Walking out to cheers, he immediately subverts his sentimental introduction by adopting a Sandy Stone-esque hint of senility, responding to the rapturous applause "that's absolutely wonderful … and goodnight" before turning to leave the stage. From there, it's on for young and old.
Play School's Hall of Fame induction
Proof that sometimes sincerity wins out on the night, beloved children's TV institution Play School's induction into the Hall of Fame remains one of the most delightful moments in Logie history.
Accepting the award, Justine Clarke and Simon Burke lead out some of the show's most beloved presenters (including Don Spencer, Benita Collings and Jay Laga'aia) and Big Ted and co (all wearing black tie, of course).
They then turn the acceptance speech into a Play School bit, complete with a dunny roll "Logie calendar" to see what day of the week it is, and one of the funniest John Wood-related gags in Logies history.
The mood in the room is absolutely delightful as, just for a moment, the Play School legends turn an auditorium full of drunk TV stars back into enthralled preschoolers.
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