Hey Hey It’s Saturday’s Wilbur Wilde on how the variety show was a reflection of Australian viewers

Hey Hey It’s Saturday host Daryl Somers recently apologised to singer Kamahl for mocking his race and humiliating him on the show during it’s heyday.

And on Friday, Wilbur Wilde – who was a saxophonist and regular on the now-defunct variety show – discussed how the show was a reflection of Australian audiences at the time.

He explained to the Herald Sun: ‘Times have changed and when you start pointing the finger at Daryl or the show itself, or any performers on any other show, it’s a bit skewed in the fact that the audience of the time could have turned it off if they wanted to, but they chose not to.’

The Channel Nine program aired from 1971 to 1977, then again from 19790 to 1999, then a brief return in 2010 before its cancellation that same year.

The 65-year-old musician noted that the show was a ratings for the generation watching the show during its heyday

‘People of that generation recognise us. Daryl or Blackers (John Blackman) and they invariably, when they approach us (they say) you don’t know me and you must get sick of this, but thanks for all the laughs you brought me and my family over the years.

‘I think it’s so sweet they do it. It happens in restaurants or walking down the street and people are really polite. And that is a lovely, lovely thing,’ he added.

This comes after Daryl Somers apologised to Kamahl for humiliating the singer after he spoke out about being racially mocked on the show.

Kandiah ‘Kamahl’ Kamalesvaran, who was born in Malaysia to Tamil-Hindu parents, recently revealed to The Guardian last week that he was the target of a series of racist jokes on Hey Hey It’s Saturday.

Kamahl, 86, said the most offensive skit happened in 1984 when a stage hand covered his face in white powder before presenter John Blackman called out off-screen: ‘You’re a real white man now, Kamahl, you know that?’

While Blackman fired back after the tell-all interview and asked why the singer didn’t confront him about it 37 years ago, Daryl issued a heartfelt apology a few days after Kamahl’s The Guardian interview.

Daryl, 69, acknowledged the historic footage from the program ‘that people have understandably found offensive’.

‘I want to make it very clear that I and all members of the Hey Hey team do not condone racism in any form,’ he wrote on Facebook.

‘I have always considered Kamahl a friend and supporter of the show, so I deeply regret any hurt felt by him as a result of anything that took place on the program in the past.’

He said the entertainment broadcast ‘never set out to offend anyone’ and acknowledged that some skits on the show, which ran from 1971 to 1999, ‘is plainly inappropriate’ and would not be aired today.

Kamahl responded with a public message for Somers saying he had accepted the apology.

‘This is to say that I, Kandiah Kamalesvaran, AKA Kamahl, accept and acknowledge the apology from friend Daryl Somers, unreservedly,’ he wrote.

However John Blackman hit back at Kamahl’s interview with The Guardian, on Facebook.

He wrote: ‘Goodness me Kamahl, 37 years and you’re still “humiliated”. You knew where my booth was!

‘If you felt so aggrieved by my “quip” you should have had marched up to it, had a quiet word in my ear and I would have desisted from making any further “racist” remarks forever.’

While the former voice over artist conceded that he sometimes ‘cringes at what we got away with’ when looking back at old episodes, he doubled down on his remarks in a fiery tweet.

‘Kamahl joins the ranks of the Cancel Culture Club – strikes retrospectively at [Hey Hey It’s Saturday],’ Blackman wrote.