18 March: Neighbours

On this date in 1985 the Australian soap Neighbours was first broadcast. 10 things you might not know about Neighbours:

1. The show was created by Australian TV executive Reg Watson, who’d spent some time in the UK working on the soap Crossroads. While he was here he used to watch Coronation Street and that gave him the idea for Neighbours.
2. The exterior shots of the houses in Ramsay street are filmed at a real street in Melbourne. It’s called Pin Oak Court, and the people who live there are paid for the right to film the outsides of their properties. Only six houses are ever shown – numbers 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, and 32.
3. Neighbours has been broadcast in more than 60 countries around the world including Barbados, Norway and Belgium, as well as the UK and the US.
4. The first words spoken on the show were "No, no, Shane, no, no”, by Danny Ramsay, played by David Clencie, who was having a nightmare.
5. The show is set in a suburb called Erinsborough. Which is an anagram of “Or Neighbours”.
6. In Australia, the show was originally pitched to Channel Nine, who declined. A former executive of the channel would later admit that was “one of the biggest missed opportunities". Channel Seven took it, but axed it after just eight months. However, the channel were so determined that no other channel should take it on that they destroyed all the sets. Channel Ten decided it was worth rebuilding them all. In fact, they built a couple of sets on trailers which they drove around, with the cast on the back, waving and holding a banner proclaiming: “Neighbours is moving to a new home.”
7. The wedding of Scott Robinson and Charlene Mitchell (played by Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue) was watched by 19.6 million people in the UK. The audience in Australia was just 2 million. The couple only married at all because there had been complaints from straight-laced viewers about them living “in sin”.
8. In 2009, Neighbours was the first Australian show to create Twitter accounts for its characters.
9. The theme tune was composed by Tony Hatch, and the lyrics written by his wife at the time, Jackie Trent. There have been eight versions of the theme song, as well as a sombre version which is used whenever a character dies or there is a disaster.
10. All three Hemsworth brothers have appeared on Neighbours. Chris guest-starred as Jamie Kane for one episode in 2002, Liam played Josh Taylor for 25 episodes in 2007, and Luke was on for 10 episodes as Nathan Tyson.

Character Birthday

Eliott Warner, a descendant of Superwil. The variant gene skips a generation and his father, Dominic, is normal as is his mother and brothers. Eliott is strongly discouraged from using his power. He is encouraged by the ghost of one of his great grandfathers that having a power is a good thing.