Will you accept these shows? 5 minutes of reality TV fame for the Opera House
We bring a little sparkle to any budget-strapped TV program. Here are some highlights from our career on the Australian small screen
Welcome to our new series Opera House: Unexpected, where we look at lesser known chapters from a 47-year career in the pop culture spotlight. For our second installment, we take you from disasters to D-list with reality TV.
1. Harnessing our inner cooking connoisseur on MasterChef
It had Benne-long ride for these season four finalists by the time they made it here for finals week. The challenge: cook a meal for 60 Bennelong fine diners incorporating our best delicacy, the humble seagull (this is a joke).
Pictured: Foodie face-off on the Forecourt. Who will make the crispiest wings?
2. Disenfranchising a generation of Shannon Noll fans on Australian Idol
The year is 2003, and Idol fever is gripping the nation. Little did we know, the Concert Hall stage was about to host the greatest and most enduring singing tragedy we had ever seen (a tough call, given the amount of opera performed here). Vale Nollsy, you were robbed.
Pictured: Seconds from Disaster, a portrait by Channel 10 (2003)
3. True love temporarily blooms (and then wilts and dies) on The Bachelor
He's beauty and he's grace, but picks no one for first place. It's season six of The Bachelor, and shortly before the last rose petal falls and condemns the Honey Badger to a beastly life without another's love, Andy G, aka Osher Gunsberg, returns to preside over another tragedy, this time tights-related. Burgeoning romance was brought backstage for a ballet date that truly raised the barre (barr-ay? I don't know how to pronounce that, I'm sorry).
Pictured: Eyes on the prize (not)
4. Smize, smize, smize with Australia's Next Top Model
Following an infamous gaffe which saw the wrong winner for cycle six announced on live TV, we graciously stepped in to bring a little star power to the cycle seven finale. Contrary to the show's famous tagline (you wanna be on top?), no contestants were placed atop the sails that day. They were, however, allowed to commandeer the fragile dinghy of our collective teen self esteem and sail it all the way to the Circular Quay sea floor. Just me? Okay then.
Pictured: A top model (for clothes) inside a top model (for architecture). Model-ception.
5. Lurking behind The Real Housewives of Sydney
There are very few things Melbourne has over Sydney. One of them is a reliably great supply of the simple, yet difficult to perfectly execute, soy flat white. The other is a successful and long lived run of Housewives. Luckily, before the Sydney version's premature cancellation, we managed to squeeze in this money shot.
Pictured: It's only fitting that the wives paid homage to Sydney's biggest, flashiest, most attention-seeking House
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