on Australian Television" (Chater). Hugh Taylor succeeded Ron Way as director and the regular cast now comprised Creyton, Frazer, June Thody, Neva Carr Glyn and Noeline Brown (recently returned from her stint in the UK), with guest appearances by Stuart Wagstaff, Arlene Dorgan, scriptwriter Barbara Angell, Bryan Davies, Johnny Lockwood (who later starred in Number 96) and Penny Ramsey. Like Chater before him, Mavis made Ron Frazer a national TV star. One of his most popular roles was as a stereotypical Australian working-class character called "Ocker", and Frazer is now credited with popularising the term. He was also well known for his 'camp' character, whose regular catchphrase "my second-best friend" also gained wide currency at the time. Mavis continued to generate controversy into 1966. On 12 February The Age reported that the Broadcasting Control Board was to investigate a sketch on that week's show which sent up the recent retirement announcement by Prime Minister Robert Menzies. The sketch featured members of the cast asking questions that "put a humorous and false slant" on answers Menzies gave to reporters' questions at his farewell press conference. The Age item concluded with a comment from HSV-7's manager, Mr K. Cairns, who maintained that the sketch "in no way held Sir Robert up to ridicule", and stated that he had seen it himself and found it "extremely funny". Barry Creyton left the series at the end of 1966 and went on to host his own short-lived variety series, The Barry Creyton Show, in Melbourne. In later years he worked extensively in theatre and revue. There is very little extant information about the 1967 series and, as noted below, it is believed that most if not all the tapes of these shows are now lost. By 1968, with all the original stars gone, ratings were declining. It was at this point, after 18 months of writing for the show and making occasional guest appearances, that Barbara Angell was finally given a major role, jointly headlining the show with Ron Frazer. She threw herself into the task, reading every newspaper every day, with the plan of writing at least one topical song and two sketches every week and according to her, they managed to reverse the ratings slide: "When Ron Frazer and I took over, we actually got the ratings up again. Because we worked terribly well together. We'd gone past the stage of the channel