Skippy Drugged with Theakstones Old Peculiar

The mean bastards who made Skippy have their evil ways exposed.

The hour-long documentary by independent production house Electric Pictures, which screens on ABC1 next Thursday, gives a remarkable insight into the pioneers of the local industry and how cultural values have changed in the past 40 years. It was a politically incorrect world in which men not only dominated the screen, they also ruled behind the scenes.

Women who worked on the show were treated like sex objects and made to wear miniskirts to work. The men would film up their skirts. On Saturdays, the women were ``allowed to wear slacks’’.

The animals didn’t fare much better: they were regularly plied with alcohol to make them perform for the cameras and kept in hessian bags so they would be disorientated when released.

Many of the main production roles were given to Englishmen because the Australians were seen as not quite as good at film-making as the Brits yet.