Excitement plus, because the new drama (based on the book) Puberty Blues premieres on Wednesday the 15th August on Network Ten. OMG. Ace.
Let’s go over this a bit, shall we?!
The new Puberty Blues stars Brenna Harding (seen on Packed to the Rafters as Georgia) as Sue and Ashleigh Cummings (previously seen in Tomorrow When The War Began and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries) as Debbie. I can’t wait to watch them and see their spin on Sue and Debbie. Lots of cringes and giggles on the cards, methinks! (Follow the new PB on Facebook here!)
(The original Puberty Blues starred Nell Schofield (top right) as Debbie and Jad Capelja as Sue. They were ace weren’t they? Have you seen the original? It is cringey-great. You can buy it here (sadly it’s not on iTunes!))
In the 2012 PB, we excitingly have Claudia Karvan as Judy Vickers, Debbie’s mum. Susie Porter plays Sue’s mum, Pam Knight. There’s a great cast : Rodger Corser (Underbelly, Rush), Dan Wylie (Tangle, Love My Way), Katie Wall (Love My Way, The Secret Life of Us) and other rad peeps. (Click here to see the full cast.)
This latest version, filmed in Sydney’s now infamous The Shire, is produced by John Edwards and Imogen Banks, the ace team behind Offspring, Tangle and Paper Giants to name but a few. (John is also behind The Secret Life of Us, Love My Way and the upcoming drama about Kerry Packer, Howzat!)
Behind the camera are ace people like:
Director Emma Freeman (read her blog here, she’s worked on all our FAVE shows plus videos for the likes of CocoRosie)
Cinematographer John Brawley (his blog is here) and
Director Glendyn Ivin (read his amazing-great blog here : there are LOTS of Puberty Blues photos : so rad : he seems like such a nice dude!)
(You really need to go visit the behind-the-scenes blogs! They are jam packed with great photos and things!)
There seems to be a pretty hilarious soundtrack to the new PB. I do remember the wafty, wobbly, surf ditty that Jenny Morris sang for the original. I think that the bits and pieces of kitschy nostalgia I’ve heard in the promos sound WAY better, don’t you? That song was kinda naff, right?!
I’m really busting to see this, can you tell?!! I remember watching the movie about 100 times with my besty, sometime with my hands over my eyes, cringing at the matter-of-fact sex scenes and the way the kids talked to each other. BUT I think it is a totally accurate reflection of how some kids grew up. And kids can be scarily matter-of-fact, right?! (Do not mention the Vaseline!)
(Kind of annoying there is no eBook version of Puberty Blues. And every bookshop I go into says ‘Not in stock, sorry’, when I ask for a copy of the book. What is THAT all about?!)
Are you going to watch?! Are you excited? Or are you nervous that this might replace the sentimental place the old Puberty Blues has in your heart? Are you feeling nostalgic for the Nell and Jad version? I totally AM. But I am totally excited that this will be reinvented for a whole new generation and spark a thousand tweets and chats about love, sex, growing up, parenting, friendship, Countdown, tape decks, America’s Top 40, communication, fried food, fashion, decor and language. Those are really great discussions to be sparking, right?!
So : Let’s do that! Let’s have a chat about Puberty Blues. Three questions for you, if you grew up in Australia…
1. Would you/have you ever eaten a Chiko Roll?
2. Would you/have you ever called anyone a ‘Mole/Moll’?
3. Would you/have you ever taped a video from Countdown or a song from the radio?!
Please share you stories. If you are old enough. <— See what I did there?! I am totes funny, no?
xx Pip
PS : Not a sponsored post. Just a fan girl post!
Hello…
You are my breathing in, I own few blogs and occasionally run out from to post ….
I can't believe she's the same girl from Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. She looks so different!
Haha Pip, so funny…I don't watch TV so hadn't yet seen any of the promo clips for the new PB but I heard there was a remake about to air…so I was excited and went searching for info…and your post came up in my Google search results!
I am totally excited about this new version…I hope it is awesome…and mostly I am kinda just excited for a new generation(s) to see what growing up in Australia was like pre-Internet-era. I had a liberal upbringing in a coastal town in QLD and surfie/beach/drugs/sex culture was a big part of the 'cool kid' culture of my early teens.
I was 13 in the early 90s though…but while some PB references are not the same as my teen years, I feel I have more in common with this than the current generation…in my later teens, I remember begging my Dad for weeks to buy a dial-up modem and connect the Internet…and then I sat there, unsure of what to actually do…I didn't know what the Internet actually did or was (incidentally I called my friend – on the land line – and she told me to go into a internet chat room and make friends!)
In answer to your three questions:
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Yes! I used to sit with my ghetto blaster and tape songs off the radio, but in particular taping music videos from special guest-programmer specials on Rage was a big part of my teen years. Still have some of the VCR tapes.
Thanks for the fun post! I am very much excited to watch the series and enjoyed watching the promo clips you posted above!
xxxx
Yes to all questions as I grew up in Cronulla and wait for it, prepare to be impressed, I was a teen when they were filming the original there. I had the original paperback which was read to death but I think (unfortunately) I loaned it to a friend and it never returned. But wait, there's more. The surfboard with the tiger on it that the girls carried at the end of the movie was borrowed from my then boyfriend Patrick (who needed me to help to him carry it down to the beach as he had a club foot!). Now my 13 yr daughter is into this as she watched the original movie on youtube and is just as excited as me to see the remake (big fans of Offspring, Love My Way). Not to mention all my favourite Aussie stars are in this! I'm so glad someone else is just as mad for it as me. I almost cried when I saw the ad for it for the first time, the music alone makes me emotional. In fact you've made me want to rave on more about it so I better do a post linking to yours ('cause you did some deep research!). And I still love Chiko Rolls.
Oh, can't wait!! But yes, I'm a bit sad that it might replace the original for me.
Chiko roll: yes.
Moll: no.
Taped from radio: we used to spend the whole weekend doing it.
And I think Countdown should still be around, especially with Molly!
xx
I still order a chicko roll whenever we get fish & chips. Although I hope I never used the word 'mole', it was certainly bandied around a lot and I most certainly recorded songs from Rage and from the radio onto cassettes. My sisters and I used to make up our own radio shows Although being born in 1975 I was probably more of an 80's child.
I remember reading the book when it first came out. I was just telling my kids last night how I was so ace at taping songs from the radio. That was back in the days when they would announce the song before it came on.
Oh, I can't wait for this show too.
– I had a Chicko Roll from the Tafe canteen the other day – just because I wasn't sure what was in one (and I'm still not).
– Yikes, I could never say the word 'moll/mole', nasty stuff. I was a bit of a goody two shoes.
– I taped everything off the Radio, please don't tell!
And finally, I live in The Shire, and I think I am pretty lucky to do so – it's a great place to live and bring up your kids and we have an awesome crafty community here too. Just saying.
Wow – what a great wrap up. I have to watch this if the makers of 'Secret Live' and 'Love My Way' have anything to do with it (and Claudia Karvan). So good to see Miss Fisher's sidekick kicking on – she's a real gem to watch on screen.
And No to the chiko roll… always suspicious about what was in those things. Or in a Spring Roll for that matter. Yes to calling someone a mole and yes to taping EVERYTHING from Countdown on my VHS, and the radio on my tiny cassette recorder. Those were the days…
I went to see the original "Puberty Blues" at the cinema with my best mate Deb (my name is not Sue) when we were about 15 or 16. Even though it bore no resemblance to our lives (we were pale white girls who didn't go to the beach), we loved it. I grew up on chico rolls because we lived across the road from the local fish and chip shop as kids and i still crave one every now and then. I still call by friends moles as it is now weird endearing kind of thing. You know you are 'in' with me if i call you a mole. My best mate Deb still has all our countdown tape/video collection, but she lives on the other side of the country now, so i can only see them when i'm in Sydney. What a mole! xxx
Yes to all three! I'm so looking forward to this series. Can't wait.
I was a 70's teen…looking forward to seeing PB.
Lived in a beach town…
Have eaten a Chicko roll…and recently while on holidays…
Didn't call anyone moll…but that word was certainly used…
And cassette tapes were the latest thing…
My daughter is called Molly Rose. From the time she could speak , if someone called her moll she would reply with "My name is not moll, my name is Molly Rose' such was my fear of that becoming her nickname! We had a 'moll patrol' at school (alas i was not 'in' enough)
Have eaten a chicko roll while on Anglesea beach with my surfie boyfriend in 1982. prob wouldn't now!
x
1. We were just talking about chiko rolls, corn jacks & dimmies the other day – I kind of liked chiko rolls! I'd try one for nostalgia's sake, if only they were vegan.
2. My friends & I regularly use the hilarious slang from school amongst ourselves, so yes, "moll" crops up sometimes (& did just the other day!)!
3. I used to make mixed tapes of songs I taped from the radio & write out the playlist on my dad's typewriter. As for Countdown… Once my little sis was out the back playing on the monkey bars & landed on her head. She ran to the backdoor crying, but I thought she was laughing because she was making this weird, lamb-like noise & told her, "Shut up! I'm watching Countdown!" as she bled profusely from the scalp. She hasn't let me forget it.
Like others who grew up in coastal towns, I lived Puberty Blues (PB). I went to a low-ses, mono – cultural public school on the Central Coast of NSW. Unlike now days, there were only two types of kids in our high school – those who surfed and hung at the beach and those who didn’t – the dags. My brother owned a panel van, and because my family home was opposite the beach all the surfers left their surf boards at our house. We would head down the beach early in the morning to maximse our UV exposure. On their way up to buy a Chico roll or Grommet burger at the beach kiosk, the surfers kick sand on us as we lay sunbaking and smothered in Reef oil. ‘Moll’ and ‘bush-pig’ was common parlance. We would leave the beach late in the day, sunburnt and dehydrated, to get ready to go to a party – typically back down on the beach – where we would “…drink piss from a paper cup and get so drunk we can’t get up”. And while we watched Countdown on Sunday nights, our anthem was purely Oz rock – the Oils, Sunny Boys, Aussie Crawl, Chisel, et al. I have had friends lose their minds to drugs and their lives to drinking, fighting and driving. I suppose unsurprisingly, I lost a school friend last month to melanoma; one of the friends who were with me in Year 7 in 1981 when we all sat around the lunch table at school and listened as PB was read out aloud. We sat there giggling with embarrassment and astonishment as we read the word ‘fuck’ in a book. We listened naively; not knowing this was to be our story in the unfolding years of high school and beyond. While the book detailed our lived experience, the movie captured the golden glow of our summers and our Coastie accents. So in this light, it will be with vested interest that those us who survived and are now in our 40s and 50s await the 2012 version of Puberty Blues. Our collective breath will be held in the hope that this remake does justice to the legendary status of the original, and is a just-fit to our memories of how, once upon a time, we lived our lives in Australia.
I have a whole BOX full of Countdown videos I recorded over the last 15 years or so when they so old re-runs on Rage over January! And BEAT THIS I was a member of the Countdown club, still have the key tag (but not sure where the magazines went)!
Haven't read PB but have read most of Kathy Lette's other books. May have eaten a chiko roll once, not pleasant!
Yes to all three of your questions
My teen dau can't wait to see what I was like as a teen, that I am dreading!
Also can't wait for this series to start!
Have eaten many a chiko roll (followed by a gaytime) whilst hanging with other molls checking out the nearby spunks in their panel vans, listening to dragon / chisel / accca dacca blaring out!
In the 70's I preferred dim sims to chiko rolls from the fish and chip shop, was guilty of calling a girl a mole (of course behind her back) and absolutely loved Countdown and any chance I had would change the family radio from 3KZ to 3XY, just so I could listen to and learn the words of the latest hits. Also wanted to wear Levis or Lee so that I could be part of the cool crowd.
Still remember the taste of a Chiko roll – gross!
Called many people a Moll but NEVER to their face!
Watched Countdown religously and listened to 3DB – WWAAKKKEE UPPPPP!!!! – and 3XY.
Tie-in book and ebook coming in August!
I cannot wait for this to start. I lived the original and I hope this lives up to my excitement. I have definitely called someone a mole in my youth and I think he word is going to make a comeback. Taping from the radio was my number one pastime.
I'm pretty sure that's a yes to all three but my memory is somewhat hazy… shame on me! Don't remember the original show, but I think I may have read the book? Actually no, this may have been just before my time and I think I am mixing it up with 'Are you there God? It's me Margaret.' Ha! Remember that one? Can't wait for the new series to start as I am missing Offspring terribly and need a replacement! Thanks for sharing the hype x
I can't wait to see this series! I can only say yes to one question….yes I taped from the radio alot!
I might have even thought the word moll in my head!
GAC Pip! Guilty as charged!! What can i say to all 3, my bestie STILL calls me a moll – she is such a rough tart! LOL..I spent my teens Canberra in the early 1980's, it was bogan town. When I became a punk my class mates nearly (quite really) killed me. It really was Puberty Blues without the beach, Sandmans and dropping and teenage pregnancy scares!
I can't believe I am admitting this!
I'm looking forward to it. I can't even remember watching the original but I'm looking forward to the 70's vibe.
I haven't eaten a Chiko roll as I'm a vegie, don't rmember ever calling anyone a Moll but most definately recorded songs off the radio. Boy how technology has changed!
x
My English high school teacher read us this book. She was pretty cool! 😉
I've seen the movie so many times and you're right about it's cringe worthy goodness. It's a classic and for that reason I'm a little hesistant about this remake. My first reaction to it was a little "what the?" but I think I will actually watch it and see what it's like. The advertisements for it are making it more and more appealing. 🙂
I have loved watching the Promos of Puberty Blues.. if only to show my teen daughter how I grew up! In regard to the above questions, I have eaten a Chiko Roll (which I didn't like), never called anyone a Moll, and spent many hours with my Panasonic cassette deck taping songs from 3XY and Countdown from the Telly!