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Speaker 1: Jerzy and Amanda jam Nation.

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Speaker 2: Australian families across the nation packed up their cars and

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Speaker 2: made the pilgrimage to Brisbane Expo eighty eight. Tim Ross

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Speaker 2: is still angry that his family wasn't one of them.

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Speaker 2: He's put that anger to good use, though, and he's

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Speaker 2: made a comedy show about it called Rosso eighty eight.

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Speaker 2: Armed with a clicker and some slides. You can take

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Speaker 2: us right to the heart of it, Tim Ross, Hello.

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Speaker 1: Good morning. Yeah, I'm still angry about it. You know

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Speaker 1: what I have nineteen eighty six, we've gotten into the

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Speaker 1: old commodore. We drove up to see Pats from Melbourne, right,

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Speaker 1: a big thing. Stayed in Randwick at a motel that

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Speaker 1: had a lift and you know, that was pretty exciting.

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Speaker 1: And Dad hated the whole of the whole experience, particularly cats.

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Speaker 1: And we never went on a family holiday ever again.

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Speaker 3: That order to do it, that order to do it else.

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Speaker 1: But everyone else went to XPO eighty eight, you know,

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Speaker 1: to show the world the Ross family. We were stuck

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Speaker 1: at home watching some in town's insponder world.

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Speaker 2: Nothing wrong with that. It's interesting in our in our

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Speaker 2: production team here, they're substantially young. Some of them are

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Speaker 2: substantially younger than we are, and they don't know the

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Speaker 2: cult of Expo eighty eight talk us through what it

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Speaker 2: meant and why it was so incredible.

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Speaker 1: Damn and demographics. You know. I was doing an interview

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Speaker 1: for the Brisbane Times and I was looking about all

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Speaker 1: these things. Clearly, remember they have the mystery flights. An

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Speaker 1: set had mystery flights. Yes, and you have to and

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Speaker 1: because no one ever could would really fly because flights

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Speaker 1: were expensive. So you pay seventy dollars and you just

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Speaker 1: turn up at the airport and they'd put you on

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Speaker 1: a plane that had any plane that had empty seats.

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Speaker 1: You could go to Tasmania for the day. You could

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Speaker 1: go to our springs, could go to Canberra, you know,

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Speaker 1: and that was a huge deal. Either journalist asked me

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Speaker 1: to spell anset anyway back to the Clee.

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Speaker 3: Well, you know they do mystery flights these days. It's

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Speaker 3: just flying jetstone.

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Speaker 2: Except your luggage goes on.

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Speaker 3: Where are we I don't know wherever? You can get

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Speaker 3: me if you're happy.

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Speaker 1: So you know, Brisbane came alive. None in that age

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Speaker 1: were roundabouts in that they had before then had to

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Speaker 1: put ads on the telly to tell people how to

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Speaker 1: use the roundabouts and everyone was taking shortcuts. But it

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Speaker 1: did change it for the world. You know, people came

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Speaker 1: from all over the world for these wonderful pavilions. For

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Speaker 1: Australia in a time without the internet, it was huge.

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Speaker 1: Everyone got in the cars and went up there. People

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Speaker 1: got season passes. On Saturday night you could see Joe

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Speaker 1: Cock or John Farham. Crowded house Brian Ferry every Saturday

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Speaker 1: night as part of you. The ticket price was a

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Speaker 1: huge concert of course, you know, you tack your little

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Speaker 1: passport out and get its stamped. And most people in

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Speaker 1: Brisbane who went every Friday night just went to the

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Speaker 1: German beer hall, did the Chicken dance and that was it.

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Speaker 3: I did that.

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Speaker 1: It's huge for the country. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I was there at Expo eighty eight and the only

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Speaker 3: thing that we got when we came back was the

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Speaker 3: New Zealand pavilion. They said, did you see the New

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Speaker 3: Zealand mine because the queue was massive And I said

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Speaker 3: to my girlfriend now wife, I said, I'm not cue

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Speaker 3: up to see New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: I fly to New Zealand.

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Speaker 3: By the time the key finishes, we could have gone

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Speaker 3: to New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: I've been. He yes, what was I don't even know

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Speaker 1: what was so special about the New Zealand.

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Speaker 3: Why did you go into it?

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Speaker 2: I was working beyond two thousand, I just started and

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Speaker 2: we were doing some filming there, but I didn't go inside.

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Speaker 2: Didn't have trees in it or something.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know.

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Speaker 2: It's magical beans.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, go to the place, but no one talks about it.

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Speaker 3: It's like people keeping the secret of the sixth sense.

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Speaker 3: No one tells you what actually was in there, but.

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Speaker 2: They do say that Expo eighty eight turned Brisbane from

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Speaker 2: a big country town into a city, did into a metropolis.

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Speaker 1: I had this great scene. This guy came to to

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Speaker 1: one of the early shows that I've done and his

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Speaker 1: mum was one of the hostesses. He wore this sort

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Speaker 1: of yellow suit that you have to wear around XO

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Speaker 1: eighty eight. And then the year after the phone Book

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Speaker 1: came out or the middle of the year, actually next

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Speaker 1: year is eighty k and she was on the front

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Speaker 1: of the phone book and her name was Eileen and

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Speaker 1: still to this day they call her Exto Island. She

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Speaker 1: still called that.

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Speaker 3: That is the dream.

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Speaker 2: You know what's really sad is when I think about

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Speaker 2: XBO eighty eight. It feels to me like that was

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Speaker 2: about three years ago.

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Speaker 1: That's that's that's the shame of these things. It it's

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Speaker 1: on marching. Well, what year?

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Speaker 3: How many years ago?

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Speaker 1: Is it eighty eight?

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Speaker 3: What's that? Come on to you out of the fine

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Speaker 3: What year was nineteen eighty eight? And what did you

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Speaker 3: think of the New Zealand here?

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Speaker 2: It was nineteen eighty eight?

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Speaker 3: That's quite the question, ago was it? Because we can't

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Speaker 3: remember five?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what that's what you have young producers who

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Speaker 1: can google, I.

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Speaker 2: Know now they can do maths.

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Speaker 3: Jim Y right, was when were you born? Ninety eight?

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Speaker 2: He wasn't How old are you? So this is thirty

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Speaker 2: five years?

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Speaker 3: Five years?

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Speaker 1: Five years ago? But like I don't look at it.

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Speaker 1: It's really interesting because I don't look back at it

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Speaker 1: with the rose colored glasses. But it has been extraordinary.

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Speaker 1: I play these bits from Perfect Match, you know, the

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Speaker 1: old dating TV show, and you know Greg Evans not

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Speaker 1: as I remember, what do you mean? It was a

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Speaker 1: bit more hands on and yeah we remembered at the time.

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Speaker 2: Really yeah, but they all were.

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Speaker 3: They go for the kiss and a little bit of

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Speaker 3: a bit of a look up and.

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Speaker 1: Down yeah, yeah, no, So that's that was a revelation

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Speaker 1: for me because that was the show that we watched

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Speaker 1: when I was a kid. Anyway, Like it was five

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Speaker 1: thirty at night, that's right before the news, and as

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Speaker 1: a teenager, you know, all we wanted to do was

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Speaker 1: go to Great Keppel Island because.

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Speaker 3: But you look at it, it's just a derelict wreck. Now,

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Speaker 3: not Greg Evans, but Great Kepel Island. Well, I think

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Speaker 3: this is what it's all right for tickets to Russo

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Speaker 3: eighty eight, head to Modernistic Books dot com. Tim, It's

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Speaker 3: always a treat to have you on our show.

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Speaker 1: Let's go to the phones, get out of the fire,

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Speaker 1: skate small in Boston out