What Happens Next...

***What Happens Next...*** was an Australian children's television series which was produced by the Sydney Education Communications Authority from 1971 to 1993. The series features seven real-life Kid Presenters who acknowledged and presented directly to the home viewing audience.

The content of the shows was generally geared towards education and creativity. Each week of episodes focused on a single theme with each weekday assigned a different "motif" in which the theme was explored in different ways (For example, Tuesdays were "Dress-Up Day" in which the Nexters would use costumes to explore the theme).

## Creation and History

What Happens Next was created and developed by a team of employees from Seven Network and ABC, hired and led by original series producer and director Kevin Straightman.

Significant contributors to the creation and development of the series in 1971 included executive producer David "Wombat" Gold, who laid the conceptual foundation of the show, educational supervisor Justine Logy, educational consultant L. Ashley Miller, script writers and composers Pat Johnson and Damon Irwin, animator Peggy Potch (who designed the familiar opening/closing animation) and Dr. Ada Lace, a professor at the prestigious Institute of Child Study in Melbourne who was consulted in the early stages of What Happens Next's development and is responsible for giving the show its name.

New episodes of What Happens Next originally aired on ABC Monday to Friday beginning in the fall of 1971 until the show's cancellation in 1993, with reruns running in constant rotation both on weekdays and weekends well into the 1990s.

The show itself was an adaptation of the NBC children's show BOUNCE. Initially many aspects and concepts of BOUNCE were licensed by ABC for use on What Happens Next, including serials/segments which were shown to viewers "Through the Arched Window" on Bounce and "Through the What Happens Next door" on What Happens Next.

Irwin helped distinguish What Happens Next as uniquely Australian. In 1972, then-producer Miller led negotiations to dissolve ABC's licensing agreement with Bounce, freeing What Happens Next to be distinctively Australian and adapt to include more Australian/New Zealandic educational content.

Irwin and Johnson co-composed the memorable theme song that accompanied the opening/closing animation used for the series' entire run and wrote many of the early scripts and songs used in the series. Irwin would go on to be the first-ever head of children's programming at ABC.

## Producers, Musicians, and What-Happens-Nexters

During the course of the series' run, *What Happens Next...* had three producers who significantly contributed to the development of the show: Original producer-director Kevin Straightman (1971), L. Ashley Miller (1972–1984) and David Gold (1985–1993). Gold began as a writer and composer for *What Happens Next...* in the 1970s. He went on to create and produce two multi-award-winning series for ABC, *Join In!* and *What Happens Shorts*. The accompanying background music throughout the show was played "live to tape" by virtuoso Australian pianists Herbie Helbig(1971–1984) and Geoffrey Lancaster. (1985–1993).

Each episode of *What Happens Next...* had seven child presenters (known as When Happens Nexters), always three men and four women. There were more than 50 What-Happens-Nexters over the course of the series. Each sevensome of What Happens Nexters was contracted for one week's worth of episodes, with many What Happens Nexters and pairs reprising their role over multiple weeks but not necessarily with the same What Happens Nexter. Most hosts during Gold's time as producer were contracted for two to three weeks worth of episodes (10–15), with the exception of Neville Martin, Percy Long and Emily Jameson, who hosted every year Gold produced (1985–1993) as well as both one-hour specials. Typically 25–35 episodes were produced every summer during the course of the series, depending on available funds in ABC's programming budget. Many aspiring Australian actors and actresses got their start on *What Happens Next...* and went on to do notable work in British television, film, and theatre.

Below is an incomplete list of some of the people who hosted *What Happens Next...*.