Interview with Australian comedy legend, Mark Mitchell

Mark Mitchell is an Australian cultural icon and a significant figure in the 40-year history of the Australian Children’s Television Foundation. While best known among grownups as the moustachioed Con the Fruiterer, to children of the nineties he was the penultimate television villain, playing the antagonist in some of the decade’s most-loved shows: Mr Fish, the angry caretaker who terrorised the children of Lift Off!; Harold Gribble, the scheming real estate agent and nemesis of the beloved Twist family on Round the Twist; and ladies’ man Otto von Meister in The Genie from Down Under.

We spoke to Mark about his time on these iconic ACTF shows, the reason behind his passion for children’s television, and how he became one of Australia’s most well known and respected comedic personalities.

You’ve had a significant role in the history of the ACTF, playing key roles in some of our most iconic programs, beginning with Lift Off! Was this your first foray into children’s television?

I'd done bits and pieces in other things, clearly things that weren't terribly memorable, but, yes, [Lift Off!] was the first and biggest at the time. I'd been offered a big role in Jesus Christ Superstar to play Herod or Pilate, and I was tossing this up when I was contacted by Patricia Edgar (ACTF founder).

Patricia said, ‘we're working on a revolutionary literacy program based on the philosophy of Howard Gardener, the eight different forms of intelligence’… and she said, ‘we'd like you to be this pivotal role as the concierge in a hotel where lots of different kids live, who is representative of every negative aspect of adult authoritarianism’.

At the time, I had three kids, and I thought, I really would like to commit to doing shows that would be beneficial to my children in particular, but all children. So I knocked back the other offer to play Herod or Pilate in Superstar and accepted the opportunity to be Mr. Fish in Lift Off! And all throughout the recordings of Lift Off!, I was given phenomenal freedom… I was free to play different characters wearing different prosthetic appliances. I played like, 47 roles, including seven or eight female characters. At one point, I was even singing a duet with my mother, who I played.

I had a lot of fun, incidental fun, dressed up as various characters, and the ACTF was nothing but indulgent of me. And I loved it. It was a wonderful opportunity.

How did you find children’s television compared to what you’d previously done, like The Comedy Company, working with grown ups and performing for a grown-up audience?

Essentially, it's the same. You prepare your lines, you think about your attitude, you do all the things that an actor must do and then you go on set and you do all those things and there's really no difference. You treat the children with the same respect you treat any other actor – be friendly, be open, be considerate, be responsive, be sensitive and understand that they need more rest, so they have to have little rest breaks and sleeps and so on.

You had three children under three when you were working on Lift Off! Was it special for you to be creating something they could watch?

Absolutely. That was one of the reasons I did it. I thought, ‘I want to make a commitment to television entertainment of worth for children because my children will be watching it’. In fact, my children and their friends watched everything I ever did for the ACTF. I'd get copies before they went to air, VHS tapes, and I'd play them and it'd be like World4Kids: the room would be filled with children all glued to the TV, watching episode after episode. I wanted the affirmation from children generally that what we were doing was quality entertainment for them. At the end of the day, we're trying to entertain children and families in a way that makes them feel like life's worth living. Perhaps that's overstating it, but I don't think so. Truth be told, that's how I thought of it.

You were also a part of Round the Twist, which is arguably the ACTF’s most iconic and well-loved show. What was it like to be a part of that?

It was wonderful. I loved it. The best role ever and always is the baddie – the baddie can be anything, he can do anything, he can say anything, he can respond in any way as long as he has ulterior motives and as long as people understand he has ulterior motives. The hero has to do one of four responses, but the baddie can be anything. So naturally, I leapt it the chance to play the baddie in Round the Twist. It was such fun.

I also loved being the baddie in The Genie from Down Under (Otto von Meister). In a way, he was my favourite baddie because he could be physicalized as a baddie. He wasn't just self-serving, but he also had a bushman’s smile. You know what I mean by that? A plumber’s crack. So it was both funny and repulsive, but I loved it.

So, Mr Fish, Mr. Gribble and Otto von Meister, the three baddies that I absolutely loved.

Lift Off! and Round the Twist have a really passionate fan base. What do you think it is about these shows that has given them such a special place in the hearts and memories of the people who grew up watching them?

I think shows that make you happy will always leave a huge, indelible imprint in memory, but also in emotion. You remember things that make you feel well, that were exciting, that were uplifting, regardless of when they occurred or how they occurred, or how much the technology of today would have eclipsed the qualities of the special effects from them. You remember that things made you feel happy. And that's really what it boils down to.

More recently you voiced Trevor Thong in The Flamin’ Thongs. Had you done much voice acting prior to that?

I've done it a bit, yes. I love it. You don't have to wear a costume, you don't have to wear makeup, you don't have to learn lines. You just go there naturally. You're in a good mood just for that alone. So you go and you turn up in a good mood and you have the script there in front of you and you just play. They let me ad lib a lot, and do funny noises and so on, which I really like doing. So it was great fun. And I think Trevor Thong is another character that I will always enjoy – he’s so stupid, but enthusiastic and optimistic, and one of his catch lines is, ‘what could possibly go wrong’? Which, of course, introduces a calamitous outcome. I loved doing Trevor Thong. I like playing baddies and idiots: if you can't be bad, be idiotic in a funny way. Be hopeful. Be a hopeful moron.

Did you always aspire to be a comedic character actor?

It was something I always did. It started with impersonating teachers at school. I used to like to observe and then reproduce because it was fun and it made people laugh. And for me, as a child, nothing was better. In fact, all my life, nothing's been better than hearing people laugh. I don't care if they're laughing with me or at me, as long as they're laughing, that's all that matters.

I've always done it and I've always loved it and it was my first instinct to do it when I was little and I've kept doing it all my life – and luckily, I've had the opportunity to keep doing it.

I think we need life affirming material – we need material that's going to make people think there could be a happy ending if we work to it. If we commit to that, we can actually see the world and our family in exactly the way that we would most hope.

You can see Mark in episodes of Lift Off!, Round the Twist and The Genie from Down Under on our Twisted Lunchbox YouTube channel.