Don Groves, “Ocker Singo Seeks Another Super Sell on New TV Show With Some Mates,” The Sun-Herald, January 21, 1979, p. 11.

Imagine it: John Singleton, King of the Ockers, regally ensconced in a lavish nightclub set, flanked by a black-tie orchestra.

Singleton, dressed in his Double Bay best or his George Street plainest (even he has an eye for a bargain), mumbles something to the camera and crosses to the dogs at Harold Park.

That odious man from the “Hudson with an H” commercial, who Singo says wouldn’t know a greyhound from a horse, gives his tips.

Ray Warren, who sounds like a graduate of the Singleton School of Elocution, calls the race, and Miss Queenie Paul presents fashions from the field.

Then comes more legitimate talent — a song from Judy Stone or Col Joye.

This is followed by a Pub Politics segment in which Singleton exchanges views with Labor rebel Sir John Egerton, journalist Mungo MacCallum and “a fair dinkum politician, if,” says Singo, “there is such a thing.”

A viewer’s dream or nightmare? You be the judge, as the ads might say, when John Singleton With a Lot of Help From His Friends is unveiled by Channel 10 at 8.30 pm on Saturday week.

In the great tradition of Australian Tonight Show comperes, Ernie Sigley, Don Lane, Rex Mossop and Graham Kennedy, here comes Singo.

It will be, he promises with characteristic modesty, “The sort of show I’d watch meself if I wasn’t in it.”

The budget of this extravaganza is $22,000 — a costly attempt by the station to increase its Saturday night audience from the present handful to a multitude.

The program will be open-ended, which is to say it might run for 90 minutes or two spell-binding hours.

The station has contracted him for 40 weeks, so a lot is riding on the broad shoulders of the advertising whizkid who retired from the business a millionaire at 35.

Ask him whether he plans to get some coaching in the TV technique, and he laughs, “Who from? I’m not going to change.”

The Don Lanes of the TV world may rely on cue-cards, but rookie Singleton will dispense with such aids as scripts. “I can’t read and talk simultaneously,” he says.

“My object is to make the show so good it won’t matter who the compere is.”

Singleton cheerfull admitted he wasn’t the first person approached to front the show.

Radio 2SM’s Gibson and Moore were among the names tossed around and Singo says: “I think half of Sydney was asked. I was the first one who wasn’t doing anything on Saturday night.”

Melbourne’s Channel 0 originally invited him to host a national show to screen on a weeknight.

“I didn’t think it would be any good,” he told me. “I can’t sing or dance or tell jokes.  I told Ian Kennon (a mate who happens to be general manager of Channel 10) I would like to have a go at a Friday or Saturday night show, with sport, politics, show-business and variety.”

A format was thrashed out, and John Singleton With A Lot of Help From His Friends is the result.

What does he see as the challenge of his latest venture?

“Just for fun,” he said. “These days I won’t do anything for money that I wouldn’t do for nothing.”

Does he enjoy the fame, even notoriety, that media exposure gives him? “Yes, you can get a table in a restaurant even if you behave madly.”

Ask him how he feels about the ocker label, and he replies, “You can’t fight it, so you might as well cop it. It’s a term used to denigrate people and those things that are very Australian. That means barbecues, going to the beach, and playing football. People who look down on it should go to England and play cricket.”

Singleton is preparing for the show as thoroughly as if he were launching a product.

Take the greyhound segment, which his colleagues at Ten initially resisted.

He’ll tell you that 700,000 people in NSW bet on the dogs each week.

That still leaves a couple of million who aren’t interested in the sport, so Singleton recruited club comedian Billy Kearns (he’s Hudson) to give his tips, then explain why they ran last.

Queenie Paul was a natural for fashions from the field.

As Singo says, “If Susie Sangster is there you can’t let her go unnoticed, can you?”

In matters political, he realises that people do not want to hear a debate about the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission on a Saturday night.

But they might be entertained by the sort of political discussion you might have with your mates in the pub.