It’s an honour just to be nominated … not

The funny thing about awards is that when you tell people that you’ve been nominated what you’re really saying is you’ve lost – you don’t talk about nominations when you’ve got a trophy sitting on top of your telly.
With that in mind, I’ve been nominated three times for sitcom writing Awgies (the Australian Writers Guild awards) and have yet to require space on my shelves for one (just as well as I need all the space I can get for my rejected scripts).
The first time I was nominated twice in one year – once with my very good friend and long-time collaborator Steve Myhill for a pilot episode of a show called “Ally and Doc”, which starred Ernie Dingo and Penny Cook. I might relate the story of how the series came to never be made once all the participants (including myself) are dead.
My other (solo) nomination was for a sitcom set in a Woman’s Day type magazine.
The third nominee was Garry Reilly for an episode of Bullpit (the Kingswood Country sequel) which had the slight advantage of having actually made it on to air. Garry is a genuinely funny man, a good operator and a totally decent bloke and he thoroughly deserved to win. Bastard!
A couple of years later I was nominated for the pilot of Dags, Murray Fahey’s TV adaptation of his almost successful comedy movie (available on video and, no doubt, DVD). I lost that one too.
Since then there hasn’t been a lot of sitcom on TV and what there has been, hasn’t been written by me. But I guess that even if I got all three nominations I still wouldn’t get a gong.
By the way, anyone who tells you that it’s enough of an honour merely to be nominated is either a liar or they’ve just won.