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Clip description
This clip begins with ‘Bill Snedden’s Bus Tours’ taking passengers on a trip to ‘Death Valley’, where they are warned, ‘Beware hot coals’. Snedden takes off his shoes, socks and trousers and walks over the hot coals. The passengers, his party colleagues, follow suit. Malcolm Fraser is last, and uses one of the hot coals to light his pipe and blow smoke in Snedden’s face. The bus departs with the passengers upside down and their burnt feet in the air.
Curator’s notes
Liberal Party and federal opposition leader Billy Snedden claimed in November 1974 that his parliamentary party would go through ‘the valley of death, over hot coals’ in their support for him. By the end of that month many of his colleagues instead voted against him in a party room no-confidence motion. Narrowly defeated in his leadership challenge, Malcolm Fraser tried again in March 1975 to defeat Snedden and this time was successful.
This animated cartoon was created for the nightly ABC current affairs television series This Day Tonight (1967–78). It was devised and finished by animator Peter Nicholson in one day, using a Bolex camera and an animation stand made from an old X-ray machine. Many of these techniques would later come in handy when Nicholson and his brother Michael came to produce Rubbery Figures (1987–88).
