While visiting the NFSA’s Melbourne office last week to record an interview with film critic and radio host Paul Harris for the NFSA’s Oral History Program, comedian and writer Tony Martin brought with him boxes of over 820 hours’ worth of significant and influential radio material from his personal collection to donate to the archive.
The boxes contained highlights of his radio program Martin/Molloy, hosted from 1995 to 1998 with former D-Generation and The Late Show co-star Mick Molloy, as well as the entirety of the Triple M program Get This, which he hosted from 2006 to 2007 with Ed Kavalee and Richard Marsland. Martin/Molloy and Get This were both top-rated nationally-networked radio programs, both influential and unique in their seamless blend of carefully crafted sketches, satire and freeform banter.
Tony Martin’s Martin/Molloy recordings were fastidiously compiled by Tony himself onto 185 × 90-minute compact cassettes. Tony listened back to episodes after they were recorded each night, selecting highlights to include on the tapes while meticulously documenting each segment. The tapes were compiled back in the mid-‘90s when most commercial radio shows weren’t kept after being recorded, but due to the enormous amount of work put into the production of the show (which included elaborate live and pre-recorded sketches) efforts were made to preserve the episodes.
