Hugh Stuckey

Stuckey was honoured by the television industry with the 2005 Fred Parsons Award at the Australian Writers' Guild AWGIE Awards for his lifetime contribution to Australian comedy.

In 2005, Stuckey was awarded the Fred Parsons Award for his contribution to Australian comedy.

By 1993, Stuckey found himself back in Australia writing for the animation The Adventures of Blinky Bill and Blue Heelers. He then returned to writing for Neighbours as story editor.

In 1992, after finishing with A Country Practice, Stuckey moved back to England to write for police drama The Bill, Moon and Son and Frankie's On, starring Frankie Howerd.

During his time writing for A Country Practice, Stuckey began a side project with director William Fitzwater, inspired by his personal interest in opera. At a young age, a friend of Stuckey's father introduced him to opera, which became a life passion. Stuckey and Fitzwater shared the vision of introducing opera to children and together created 13 episodes of The Maestro's Company. This was Australia's first ever show featuring both puppets and live actors, and was released in 1984.

In 1975, Stuckey signed his first contract in the UK with BBC London, where he wrote for The Two Ronnies, Dave Allen at Large, The Dick Emery Show and comedy star Frankie Howerd.

During the 1970s, J.C. Williamson Theatre Ltd held a competition whereby the winner was guaranteed production of their winning play. Stuckey and writing partner Jack Brown won the competition with their murder mystery Over My Dead Body. They were paid the £5000 award money but shortly after winning the prize, J.C. Williamson Theatre Ltd went bankrupt and the play was never performed.

The well-known English comedian and actor Tony Hancock was contracted to play the starring role in an intended 13-part early color television series to be called Terra Australis for the Seven Network. Stuckey was the head writer for the sitcom series about a complaining British migrant, but referred to his work on this show as being less of a writer and more of a minder for the deeply depressed and alcoholic Hancock. On 24 June 1968, after the first three episodes were recorded without audiences in ATN7 Sydney, Hancock committed suicide. The Seven Network later showed this unfinished work as The Tony Hancock Special, which finally aired on 25 January 1972 and has since appeared on DVD.

In 1966, Stuckey was hired by Melbourne television station ATV0 (now ATV10, part of Network Ten, as a writer and producer of The Jimmy Hannan Show, hosted by 1965 Gold Logie winner Jimmy Hannan.

After returning to Australia and fulfilling his contract with The Delo & Daly Show, Stuckey moved to HSV, now Seven Network, in 1963. He was hired to devise and produce a daytime series that ran five one-hour episodes per week. The series, Time for Terry, was hosted by English comedian Terry O'Neill.

In 1962, Stuckey moved on to write for The Delo & Daly Show, a comedy variety show hosted by Americans Ken Delo and Jonathan Daly. Stuckey wrote 46 one-hour episodes of the show, which appeared on HSV7 (now Channel 7. With the support of Daly, Stuckey was granted a leave of absence by HSV7 to pursue writing and to gain experience in Hollywood. While in Hollywood, Stuckey was hired by Desilu Productions who gave him the experience to learning directly from the writers of The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Danny Thomas Show and The Andy Griffith Show

In 1962, Stuckey was one of the founding members of the Australian Writers' Guild. He served as national vice-president under the presidency of renowned playwright David Williamson. The AWG was established to "improve professional standards, conditions and remuneration for Australian performance writers, protect and advance the creative rights of their members and to promote the Australian cultural voice in all its diversity."

In 1959, Stuckey wrote the book My Mate Charlie, a fictional comedic novel based on his father and his father's best friend (from whom Hugh got his middle name). The book was published by Horwitz Publications and featured on In Melbourne Tonight, with host Graham Kennedy recommending it to his viewers.

Having started writing for In Melbourne Tonight in 1957, he was one of Australia's first television comedy writers. He wrote for Australian productions The Delo and Daly Show, Time for Terry, A Country Practice, Blue Heelers, Hey Dad..!, Neighbours, The New Adventures of Blinky Bill and The Restless Years, and wrote various shows for stars Noel Ferrier, Stuart Wagstaff, Bert Newton, Frankie Howerd and Tommy Leonetti. British shows he wrote for included The Two Ronnies, Dave Allen at Large and The Bill. American productions included I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched.

In 1957, the year after television was introduced to Australia, Stuckey was hired as a comedy writer for Sydney Tonight. In 1958, he was appointed head writer for the highly successful In Melbourne Tonight, which was hosted by Graham Kennedy on Melbourne's GTV9 (now part of the Nine Network. After the Reg Grundy Organisation was founded in 1959, Stuckey would find regular work on the many programs the company would produce in the following decades.

In 1955, Stuckey fathered his first child, Leigh-Anne.

In 1954, much to his father's disappointment, Stuckey quit his job at APM and left Melbourne with his new wife Shirley and took up a writing role for The Cadbury Show that would run for over 300 episodes.

Stuckey, however found little interest in his job at APM, focusing his attention on performing live on stage and radio after hours. During World War II, he performed in 350 performances for the Australian troops in a comedy routine. In 1946, he received his first writing credit for a five-minute sketch for ABC Radio. In 1947, he wrote several gags for Radio 3DB's show Happy Gang.

In 1942, at 14 years old, Stuckey secured his first radio spot as a comedian for a weekly variety show called Kiddies Kapers. In 1943, at the age of 15 and under pressure by his father, he finished his studies at Melbourne High School and started working at Australian Paper Manufacturers (APM), now named Paperlinx. Hubert had chosen APM for Hugh to work for, as they had survived the Great Depression and could offer Hugh a secure job for life.

Hugh Clifford Stuckey (1 July 1928 – 21 June 2018) was an Australian comedy and drama screenwriter, with credits writing for television, film, radio and commercials both locally and in the United Kingdom and the US. He was also a published author, playwright, radio broadcaster, actor, and Victorian baseballer.

Born Hugh Clifford Stuckey on 1 July 1928 at the Ellesmere Hospital, Ormond, Australia, he was the son of Linda Stuckey and Australian baseballer Hubert Stuckey. He was born during the Great Depression, which had a large impact on the Stuckey family.