[Source: ABC News]

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, where we give you all the intel you need about iconic shows. In honour of its 35th anniversary, this time we’re looking at surreal Australian kids’ show Round the Twist.

“Have you ever, ever felt like this?”

For many Australians, this one simple question is enough to conjure up imagery of mermen covered in nails, fluff monsters under the bed and a singular white lighthouse.

It is, of course, the opening lyric to Round the Twist, the television adaptation of author Paul Jennings’ short stories.

Due to the show’s split history, it has the unique honour of capturing two generations of Australian kids — one in the early 90s and another in the early 2000s.

But it very nearly became a victim of poor commercial-television programming.

Now celebrating the 35th year since its premiere on Aussie TV, Round the Twist has become ingrained in our cultural identity.

So, if you’ve got school-aged kids ready to give it a go or you just want to dip into a little nostalgia, here’s all you need to know (or be reminded) about Round the Twist.

What is Round the Twist about?

In the late 80s, Australian Children’s Television Foundation (ACTF) director Patricia Edgar was hunting around for a kids show that was undeniably Australian, when a book of short stories from Victorian writer Paul Jennings came across her desk.

Jennings had been publishing his eclectic, irreverent stories for older children for a couple of years when Edgar asked to adapt them into a TV show. He jumped at the chance.

As Jennings had never penned a screenplay before, Edgar paired him up with script supervisor Esben Storm who would also go onto direct episodes and feature as school teacher Mr Snapper.

It was decided that the show would revolve around a family, with each episode serving as an adaptation of one of Jennings’ stories.

A single father of four himself, Jennings based most of the Twist family on his own. There’s daggy single dad Tony, grotty youngest boy Bronson, politically minded middle child Linda and preening eldest son Pete, who Jennings says is not based on his own child but rather himself as an adolescent.

The Twist family resides in a cliff-side lighthouse in the fictional coastal town of Port Niranda, a home they share with series antagonists the money-hungry real estate agent Harold Gribble, and his sycophantic wife and bully son who is simply known as Gribble.

Despite it being made for an Australian audience, Round the Twist first premiered in the UK in April 1990. The first episodes were broadcast on the BBC in a prime 5pm time slot and quickly started pulling in an average of 5 million viewers per episode.

By the time it premiered in Australia, in August 1990 on Channel Seven, local audiences were champing at the bit for the Twist family. But Seven all but buried the show, labouring it with a dismal 8:30am Sunday time slot — when most of its target audience was still sleeping.

“I mean, how many other Australian series, which cost $3 million to make, have been shown at 8.30am Sundays?” journalist Lawrie Masterson wrote in TV Week at the time. “If this is a new trend in programming, it requires an explanation.”

By 1992, a second season of the show was in production with a different cast of kids (the original actors had aged out of their characters) and a different broadcaster, with ABC pre-ordering the sophomore season and purchasing the re-run rights to the first.

The stage was set for a third season but it would be another seven years before it materialised.

The impact of Round the Twist
After the second season of Round the Twist premiered, relations began to sour between Jennings and Storm. The author was consulted for everything related to the series but chafed at Storm not allowing him final decisions, Edgar recounted in a 2019 oral history.

The schism between the two men meant talks of a third season went quiet. But the show’s popularity continued to soar as re-runs played on ABC, BBC and Disney’s European channels.

Towards the end of the millennium, Edgar made the decision to push forward with season three of Round the Twist based on original stories and without Jennings’ involvement.

Edgar and Storm gathered a group of writers to create the third season, with a new cast of kids and a new Tony in Andrew Gilbert.Yuckles (S2EP10)
Grubby developer Gribble Sr wants to cut down a huge section of Port Niranda’s forest to make way for a casino with plastic trees. The only thing standing in his way is local resident Nell’s claim that the forest is the only home to a rare mushroom species, the titular yuckles.

Alas, no-one has ever seen a yuckle in living memory. So, after Nell sprains her ankle, it’s up to the Twist siblings to snap a fresh picture and save the forest. With convincing effects that far outpace the year it was made, Yuckles is one of numerous examples of Round The Twist sneaking in pro-environment messaging among buckets of goop.

Quivering Heap (S2EP11)
While a few Round the Twist episodes flirt with the frightening, this season two episode has the potential to be genuinely scary … until you make it to the signature Twist twist.

Pete nabs the lead role in the school’s production of Dracula (as well as the opportunity to suck Fiona’s neck). Jealous understudy Gribble locks Pete in a grubby public toilet to keep him from opening night where he meets an honest-to-goodness ghost. The mohawked spook is one test away from graduating out of his dunny prison but Pete isn’t buying what he’s selling, even when the spirit dangles him off a high-rise (another shout-out to the surprisingly advanced SFX) so the two team up to get Pete back on stage.

The Big Burp (S3EP1)
Season three and four moved away from Jennings’ stories but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some terrific episodes. This season three opener sees Pete, desperate for a wee, relieve himself on a nearby tree. But this isn’t any old oak, as a beautiful tree sprite appears before Pete and asks to be his girlfriend.

Unfortunately for Pete, biology is a little different for dryads and his wizzing on her bark means that Pete’s now pregnant with her tree sprite offspring. Pete goes through all the normal pregnancy things like morning sickness and a rapidly expanding belly before culminating in a bizarre birthing scene where he literally burps up a baby. The episode is a soft dip into body horror that is rarely seen in modern children’s television.

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