“Hey, Hey It’s Saturday” Star Slams Cancel Culture, accuses it of Killing Comedy

Former ‘Dancing with the Stars’ host Daryl Somers was slammed on social media this week for calling out cancel culture.

The Australian entertainer, and comic, also famous for the successful, Aussie larrikin vaudeville Saturday night regular, ‘Hey, Hey, It’s Saturday,’ (1971-2010) lamented the new morality, its Iron Curtain hecklers, and Soviet-era thugs, telling the Daily Telegraph,

“You couldn’t get away with half the stuff you could on Hey Hey now, because of political correctness and cancel culture. It’s a shame because showbiz doesn’t get much of a chance.”

The 69-year-old added,

“’A lot of comics can’t work much because what would have been just tongue-in-cheek previously now can easily get them into trouble. I can’t say I am enamoured with it, but it is a changing world in which we live and you just have to work around things.”

Somers’ comments were met with a deluge of hate on Twitter, as Jack’s goons – behind their morbidly heavy chairs, lattes, and expensive Apple computers, with their “everything is racist” CRT crusade, hiding their dissatisfaction with their own achievements in life – in true Red fashion, gave Somers’ “the gong.”

Then, and not without irony, the perpetually angry, run-of-the-mill, unsatisfied radical leftist jihadist, fighting imaginary Nazis online – heaped insults, ridicule, and “hate speech” at a man they don’t personally know, at a show, they don’t understand, and have probably never seen (other than selective ‘Hey, Hey it’s Saturday’ clips designed to stir up anti-Israel Folau level animosity to fever pitch), because of humour that goes over their immature heads.

With one such Twitter loudmouth claiming the cast “bullied Kamahl” (an Australian legend in his own right), reviving Kamahl’s grievances aired on ‘A Current Affair’ in 2011, about ‘Hey, Hey’s’ ‘ethnic comedy,’ while overlooking Daryl Somers telling ACA that he was ‘very fond of Kamahl, had the greatest respect for him and always will.’ Adding, “I think this is all rather silly.”

To add, what Australia’s version of America’s race-baiting racists didn’t bother mentioning, is that Kamahl made regular appearances on the show.

Kamahl joined hundreds of other musicians, who benefited from the cast’s ability to draw a crowd.

Far from delegitimising him because of ethnicity the “Hey, Hey” platform legitimised Kamahl, and made him a respected, household Australian name; helping him sell albums, and increase his fan base. (Noted by the fact that I’m writing about him 11 years after the show was cancelled.)

That’s the real “Hey, Hey” legacy. Not racism. Not sexism. Not homophobia. [Insert the long list of apparent phobias those of us are not on the Left are continually being diagnosed with, by those on the Left.]

The poor decision to include a blackfaceJackson Jive Show” in Red Faces during a 2009 reunion show, shouldn’t be the “Hey, Hey’s” defining moment. Irrespective of the joyless, graceless, and cold bony finger of Karl Marx reaching through his humourless, Cultural Marxist disciples today.

It’s a well-established fact, that without Daryl Somers, Australian artists, and the Australian music industry would never have achieved what it did. It’s no coincidence that the Australian music industry’s life support was pulled around the time ‘Hey, Hey, It’s Saturday’ ended.

Somers is a dead-set Aussie legend.

It’s good to see him speaking out.

Examine the claims. The problem isn’t Somers. It’s the hate-anything-Australian leftists, beating up Somers, tearing-down-others in order to make themselves famous.

The problem isn’t an Australian entertainment icon, who had the balls to put his face to an always controversial, vaudeville variety show with an original Aussie larrikin flair.

They often mocked themselves along with everyone else.

It’s worth repeating the words of Karl Barth,

“Away with the yardsticks! Those who cannot sigh with others, and laugh about themselves are warmongers.” (Attributed)

Cancel culture is fascism proper.

(You can watch some of the Hey, Hey It’s Saturday episodes at their website here.)


First published on Caldron Pool, 24th March, 2021.

©Rod Lampard, 2021.

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