While the Geneva Convention now forbids showing any detainees free-to-air television there was a golden decade running from 1995 – 2005 where Cheez TV ruled the airwaves for peak entertainment.
The show was hosted by Ryan & Jade, whose on air persona was kind of like the teen camp coordinator oddballs who had free based Cottees for about 4 hours before each show. It was electric chemistry and it worked.
There was also a rotating female host who often worked to balance out the cordial-energy of the main hosts. The water that helped get the show’s balance just right or you’d likely head straight to school so whacked out cheez you’d have to down half a tub of Clag just to take the edge off.
The show was Channel 10s answer to the Channel 7s Agro’s Cartoon Connection. A show which saw a puppet thirst after Anne-Marie & Ranger Stacey with all the subtlety of an Italian builder when the moon hit his eye.
Pesty puppets aside, Cheez TV welcomed the viewer in with an intro that no doubt sits in the “banger section” on your nostalgic heart shelf. What a mix of a Euro dance track, someone’s uncle spitting hot fire with some Vanilla Ice bars and of course the powerful female vocals on CHEEZ TV to send it home. Magic.
You’d then be welcomed as a cheezoid and this was back when being a cheezoid was pure and not just a nickname for the unhygienic tradie from Rockingham that you met on Bumble last weekend and turned you off bitey cheddars.
I digress. Cheez TV had a pretty solid format – top quality cartoons intertwined with viewer letters, guests and skits.
Now it’s the cartoons that really made this show. Biker Mice from Mars, Sailor Moon, Earthworm Jim, Pokemon, Rugrats just to name a few. They were the sort of cartoons one could set their watch to.
Sure beats the endless brainrot kids are receiving in the morning from TikTok (heard of Skibidi toilet? Well, thank yourself lucky if you haven’t).
To have your letter read out on the show would be a childhood experience only beaten by getting to appear on A*mazing.
It is unlikely any television studio will ever be able to get that sort of lightning back in the bottle and cheap game shows and inane reality TV will continue to get pumped out until the airwaves are shut down by an involuntary administrator.
Not that many will shed a tear that day. Unlike 31 December 2004 when Ryyan & Jade bid us adieu. The show continued in a hostless zombie state for a year but without these two maniacs it just wasn’t the same.