Travel | Neighbours Tour, Melbourne
On Sunday Stew and I went on a Neighbours tour where we got to visit 'Ramsay St' and Grundy television studios. I grew up with Neighbours but haven't watched it for many years now, but it was still so much fun to go and see the set.
Ramsay St is in fact Pin Oak Court and it's a real street with real people living in the houses. They're paid a whopping $28,000 a year from Neighbours and have to have 24hr security on the street as they've had some crazy fans try and break into their homes and gardens before.
The UK didn't broadcast Neighbours until 3 years after it first appeared on Australian screens meaning for the last 29 years that it has been going the UK has been behind on each episode. However because Australia only show 44 weeks worth of episodes a year and the UK show 47 weeks worth of episodes we've now almost caught up. This now means that they will have to film extra episodes to keep the UK audience happy as we watch it more often, or they will now need to try and broadcast more episodes in Australia each year so that the two countries run together!
Also here's a fun fact for you - Neighbours is Iceland's biggest show with over 60% of the population tuning in every day!!
They only film the outside of the houses and anything that happens in the street on one day each week to not disturb the residents of Pin Oat Court too often. The rest of the show is filmed at Grundy TV studios. Whilst we weren't allowed to go inside the studios we were able to see the outside of all the other buildings used in the show including Lassiters, Harold's Shop, Grease Monkeys etc. Everything is of course fake, most of the buildings are only shop fronts and have no insides, but Lassiters lake is in fact a real lake that they built at the studios.
And just 2 years ago they finally decided to build the back gardens of each house in full size at the studios. Before this they would film at the residents homes but this now makes it quicker for them to produce the episodes. However lots more 'crazy fans' have since decided to break in and try and go for a swim in the pools. So they've had to errect 6 foot high fences to keep people out.
As we came to the end of the tour we were lucky enough to spot a couple of pages of script lying on the floor. Lots of plot teasers to be had if I knew anything about what was currently happening on the show.
It was a really fun couple of hours and the guide was so knowledgeable. I will ace any Neighbours trivia quiz now! Haha!
Obviously we all know the show is fake just like any other soap. However here are some funny facts for you...
- Karl and Susan Kennedy, Lynne Scully and 3 other cast members all used to be on Prisoner, a show that was also filmed at Grundy studios in the 80's.
- On Prisoner Karl and Susan were brother and sister!
- Billy and Libby Kennedy dated in real life.
- 'Ramsay St' is in fact half the length of what they make it look like on the show.
- When cars turn out of Ramsay St on the show they only ever turn left so that they only have to close half of the main road.
- It rains a lot in Melbourne and is very often cloudy so they use huge lights to make it look sunny all the time.
- Most of the cast members are from Queensland in real life which is why they're all tanned.
- The word Erinsborough is an anagram of Neighbours with an extra r and o.
- Jim Robinson played by actor Alan Dale died of a heart attack on the show. He also died of a heart attack on The OC, ER and Ugly Betty!!
- Neighbours launched the careers of Kylie Minogue, Natalie Imbruglia, Holly Valance and Russell Crowe.
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