Gallery - Fred Dagg and company

Television (Excerpts) – 1973

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These comic sketches for current affairs show Gallery mark the earliest appearances of Fred Dagg on Kiwi TV screens. John Clarke and others were invited to "inject some humour" into the programme, and an iconic character was born. The first clip finds Dagg duck shooting in downtown Lambton Quay, followed by comic appearances by Paul Holmes (as a flasher) and John Banas (a man who has a strange way with words). In the second clip, reporter David Exel quizzes Wellingtonians on the reintroduction of daylight savings. Dagg is "against it for two reasons". Read more about Fred Dagg here.

David Exel was the reporter and we had to give the character a name. He thought Fred. I thought Dagg. So it was.
– John Clarke on the process of naming his most famous character, Audioculture 10 April 2017