The internet is one of the buggest changes of our lifetime and Utube part of it, a part I never bother with other than passing glimpse references.
But be it Utube, or the various Idol or Got Talent reality shows, there can be some great entertainers of all streams revealed and perhaps even a Pavarotti would have been discovered if the internet had been there in his formative years and likewise with a Kamahl instead of singing for sandwiches.

I used to watch Hey Hey a bit and yes Kamahl was always introduced in a light hearted way I would say from memory more so than being derided and I doubt that Kamahl would have done return appearances if they had been offensive to him.
But then as he says “Unfortunately, the show has never been to my advantage,” he says finally. “I used them, and they used me. On hindsight, I would have been better without it.”

The show has certainly always had a light hearted strain, the Chainsaw Jimmy Barnes [ with their cartoons ] I recall and of course JF was before Whispering Jack was always on the way back [ with another tour ]but they still had their fun with him and the Mickey was taken out of many regulars and non-regulars on the show, even if done in different styles and I cannot recall the powder puff scene to comment.

Many people probably would not have been too aware of Kamahl if it had not been for Hey Hey and if anything may have broadened the base for his singing audiences so it is a bit tongue in cheek to say “Frankly, they never fed me, they never promoted my career, they used me to make jokes out of. I don’t think that show ever helped me sell a record.” “Being on television,” he tells me, “people recognise you, but what they think, what their perception is, I don’t know.”

Bit oxymoronish taking the whole lot together.

And then Channel 7 is typical of how the media works is it not always on the look out for what will sell or get the ratings.

On generalisations, they can be damming and should be dammed for they too easily put labels on whole nationalities, races and cultures; “My whole purpose of getting into show business was not so much to sing, as it was to communicate, because of my ethnicity, being black in Adelaide in Australia in 1953 and 54, it was a very different experience, not like now. The few of us Asian students at King’s College would be the only few non-white students. It made me extremely self-conscious and shy, and I try to avoid talking about it, but there’s an inferiority complex – you don’t have to be black to have it – even now, if I go into a room of strangers, the old doubts and fears come rushing back…It’s a feeling that as a non-white person, you’re of little or no consequence, and that’s what the Australians thought of the Aborigines 30 years ago, they were regarded as no more important than cattle, and I identified with them. So I have great sympathy for their plight, and I’m sort of caught between them and a white man.”
and though I understand the inferiority and self consciousness along with “” you don’t have to be black to have it “”
Kamahl’s comments about thoughts on aboriginals are somewhat stretched or generalised!
Which Australians does he speak of?
The bulk of Australians may not identify with our indigenous people and that’s nought to do with colour but just a simple fact that most likely have minimal interaction with indigenous peoples, merely because of where most of them live and where other people live.

And whilst there are as many difficulties for indigenous people as there likely numbers of them, to say that Australians considered aborigines as being of little or no consequence and regarded as no more important than cattle is something he may feel a little about what he thought of Hey Hey in hindsight.