Mortified
Encyclopedia
Mortified was an Australian children's television series, co-produced by the Australian Children's Television Foundation
and Enjoy Entertainment for the Nine Network Australia, Disney Australia
and the BBC
. The series premiered on 30 June 2006 and ended on 11 April 2007 with two seasons and a total of 26 episodes. Currently, re-runs air on both Disney Channel
and Nine Network Australia, in the U.S. on Starz Kids and Family,
and in the UK on BBC2.
called Sunburn Beach, as she struggles to make it through her pre-teen years with her flawed and embarrassing family. She is embarrassed by her parents; jealous of her neighbour Brittany; her best friend, Hector, has a crush on her; and she has a crush on popular Leon. Taylor frequently breaks the fourth wall
and speaks directly to the audience. Her imagination causes inanimate objects to seemingly come to life.
. Series director is Pino Amenta. It consists of 26 24-minute episodes. The first season of Mortified had a budget of A$9.3 million. It was shot entirely on location in Coolangatta on the Gold Coast
while most of the school scenes were filmed at the local Palm Beach Currumbin State High School, starting on 8 June 2005. Mortified was launched in Cannes
at MIPTV
in April 2006.
format on 4 April 2007. Titled Mortified: Volume 1, the 2-disc DVD has a running time of 299 minutes and includes the first 13 episodes. Mortified: Volume 2, a 2-disc DVD consisting of episodes 14–26 (running time of 312 minutes), was released on 18 July 2007.
Australian Children's Television Foundation
The Australian Children's Television Foundation is a non-profit, government-funded organisation in Australia concerned with the development, production, dissemination and promotion of children's television and other audio-visual material for children....
and Enjoy Entertainment for the Nine Network Australia, Disney Australia
Disney Channel Australia
For the Disney Channel in other countries, see Disney Channel . For the original Disney Channel, see Disney Channel.Disney Channel Australia is a television channel that is broadcast in Australia and New Zealand...
and the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. The series premiered on 30 June 2006 and ended on 11 April 2007 with two seasons and a total of 26 episodes. Currently, re-runs air on both Disney Channel
Disney Channel
Disney Channel is an American basic cable and satellite television network, owned by the Disney-ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company. It is under the direction of Disney-ABC Television Group President Anne Sweeney. The channel's headquarters is located on West Alameda Ave. in...
and Nine Network Australia, in the U.S. on Starz Kids and Family,
and in the UK on BBC2.
Premise
Mortified follows the imaginative life of Taylor Fry, an eleven-year-old girl living in a beachside town in QueenslandQueensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
called Sunburn Beach, as she struggles to make it through her pre-teen years with her flawed and embarrassing family. She is embarrassed by her parents; jealous of her neighbour Brittany; her best friend, Hector, has a crush on her; and she has a crush on popular Leon. Taylor frequently breaks the fourth wall
Fourth wall
The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...
and speaks directly to the audience. Her imagination causes inanimate objects to seemingly come to life.
Main cast
- Marny KennedyMarny KennedyMarny Kennedy is an Australian teen actress, noted for her roles as Taylor Fry in the series Mortified, and Veronica diAngelo in the third season of The Saddle Club. She also stars as Ally Henson in the TV series A gURLs wURLd...
as Taylor Fry – Taylor is the main character and protagonist. She is embarrassed by her parents Don and Glenda, is annoyed by her sister Layla, and has a crushInfatuationInfatuation is the state of being completely carried away by unreasoned passion or love: 'expresses the headlong libidinal attraction' of addictive love...
on her classmate Leon (while her best friend Hector has a crush on her, but she does not know it). Taylor regularly breaks the fourth wallFourth wallThe fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...
and talks directly to the audience. Marny Kennedy received an Australian Film Institute Award for her role in Mortified. - Nicolas Dunn as Hector Garcia – Hector is Taylor's best friend. He is a very loyal friend to Taylor, and often gets dragged along on her crusades. However, he falls out with Taylor in the episode "Flag Fall" after Taylor calls him a dorkDorkDork may refer to:* USA pejorative slang for a quirky, silly and/or stupid, socially inept person, or one who is out of touch with contemporary trends...
after he volunteers to raise the new school flag, and again in "School Trivia Night" where Taylor accidentally gets teamed up with Leon. Hector secretly has a crush on Taylor, even going so far as to send her a Valentine's DayValentine's DaySaint Valentine's Day, commonly shortened to Valentine's Day, is an annual commemoration held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions. The day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine, and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496...
card in the episode "DJ Taylor" (though Taylor mistakenly assumes the card was from Leon, though even after Taylor finds out that this was not the case, Hector does not tell her the card was from him). He is allergic to cats (as revealed in the episode "Taylor Gets a Job"). - Maia MitchellMaia MitchellMaia Mitchell is an Australian actress from Lismore, New South Wales. She is best known for playing Brittany Flune in the children's television series Mortified for Nine Network Australia, Disney Australia and the BBC, and as Natasha Hamilton in the Seven Network's children's teen drama...
as Brittany Flune – Brittany is Taylor's next door neighbour, who sometimes has an on/off friendship with Taylor. She is beautiful and is best known for being perfect. Like Taylor with her parents Don and Glenda, Brittany is shown to be sometimes feel embarrassed by her parents. She talks in flowery language and appears to be the leader of a clique in the episode "Bigger Than Vegas". - Luke ErcegLuke ErcegLuke Erceg co-stars on the Australian television show Mortified . He is set to appear on the Australian television crime-drama series Underbelly: A Tale of Two Cities, and Logie Award-winning Australian medical-drama series All Saints...
as Leon Lipowski – Leon is the class heartthrob. Taylor and Brittany both have crushes on him, though it is slightly obvious that he prefers Brittany. Hector is biased against him since Taylor has a crush on Leon (when Hector has a crush on Taylor) and when Leon always throws "missiles" at him in class, much to the annoyance of Mr. McClusky. His father, Gary, is nicknamed "Fingers" and Leon mostly enjoys surfing and sports. Leon at first appears to be an only child until his older brother, Brett, makes his first and only appearance in the episode "School Trivia Night". - Dajana CahillDajana CahillDajana Cahill born in is an Australian actress who is best known for her role in the children's television series Mortified, which has screened on the Nine Network, ABC1 and the Disney Channel, and on the BBC in the UK.-Career:...
as Layla Fry – Layla is Taylor's older sister. She is nasty and annoying, and is always getting on Taylor's nerves. She is obsessed with fashionFashionFashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...
(in the episode "Mother in the Nude", she gets a job of presenting Hipp's Apricot Hand Cream on a TV commercial and in the episode "The Chosen One", she steals Taylor's hairbrush) and is always finding and dumping boyfriends. Despite the feud between them, Layla does show some positive actions towards Taylor; such as in the episode "Taylor Gets a Job", she gives Taylor her old mobile phoneMobile phoneA mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
(though it later turned out that all the old numbers were still in the contact list and Taylor ended up getting phone calls from random people) and in the episode "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day", she helps Taylor rebuild her half-destroyed model of a RomanAncient RomeAncient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
kitchen after Taylor reunited her with her old boyfriend. It is revealed in the episode "Taylor Turns Bad", that Glenda considers Layla a rebel, whilst Taylor considers her to be an idiot. - Andrew BlackmanAndrew BlackmanAndrew Blackman is an Australian actor.Andrew Blackman graduated Kelvin Grove College of Advance Education in 1984 with an Associate Diploma in Performing Arts and was granted the Elizabeth Bequest Scholarship with T.N...
as Don Fry – Don is the dad of Taylor and Layla, and the husband of Glenda. He is referred to as the "Underpant King" and even has a shop that sells underpants in the local shopping centre. Despite being ditzy and wacky, he does show mature effects such as the time when he rescued Taylor who was in danger of drowning since she had fallen into the sea when wearing a mermaid costume. - Rachel BlakelyRachel BlakelyRachel Blakely is an Australian actress. Her works include films such as Love Until, Young Hercules and Counterstrike, as well as guest appearances on television shows such as Xena: Warrior Princess, State Coroner and Flipper; from 2006 to 2007 she starred as Glenda Fry in the Australian...
as Glenda Fry – Glenda is Taylor and Layla's mum and Don's wife. She is ditzy and wacky like Don and personality-wise, is stuck in the 1960s. She often helps Don at the Underpant King store. Like her cousin Mystic Marj, she is obsessed with things like chakras/mind/body/spirit and often meditates. - Sally McKenzieSally McKenzieSally McKenzie is an award winning Australian actress, director, playwright and producer. She graduated from Australia's prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1977....
as Mystic Marj – Marj is Glenda's cousin. She is a seer/fortune teller/mystic/prophetic/psychic and makes a living out of reading tea leavesTasseographyTasseography is a divination or fortune-telling method that interprets patterns in tea leaves, coffee grounds, or wine sediments....
. She is eccentric and, like Glenda, has a passion for chakras. Despite her reputation, Marj is often thought to be a fraud and a bit insane. In the episode "Mother in the Nude", she and Taylor create a video where Marj predicts a series of cataclysmic events occurring at the seaside at the time of Sculpture by the Beach (eg. rainstorms, glaciers, landslides and thunderstorms) and no one believed her, and in the episode "Bigger than Vegas", Taylor goes to ask her advice for something and Marj correctly guesses that Taylor had been nominated for school captain but only because Glenda told her.
Recurring cast
- Mr. McClusky (Steven TandySteven TandySteven Tandy is an Australian stage, television and film actor, best known for playing Tom Sullivan, the second eldest son in the classic Australian television series The Sullivans.-Biography:...
) is Taylor, Hector, Brittany and Leon's teacher (and presumably Layla's old primary school teacher since in the episode "Taylor Turns Bad", he keeps saying her name and acts like he really knows her). He is wise and can be strict at times (especially with Leon when he throws "air-born missiles"). Mr. McClusky appears in every episode of series one (apart from "The Talk"), but is absent in series two since Taylor, Hector, Brittany and Leon depart for high school at the end of series one (though he is mentioned briefly by Taylor in the first episode of series two "Little Fish" that Taylor misses him and his bush-walking socks to which Hector replies "Seriously?"). - Michael and Loretta Flune (Peter Kent) and (Veronica Neave) are Brittany's parents. They like to keep everything "perfect". They are brilliant musicians (as revealed in the episodes "Taylor's DNA" where they play a piano solo for the talent quest and in "Mother in the Nude" where Loretta plays the piano and Michael plays the cello) and are zero-tolerant of stains (as revealed in the episode "Girl Power", when Taylor accidentally spills raspberry cordial on the carpet) and have strict house rules (as seen in the episode, "Taylor's Song.")
- Gary Lipowski (David Anderson) is Leon and Brett's dad. His wife is not shown, suggesting/implying that he is a widower. He owns a repair shop for things like radios and televisions and microwaves. In the episode "School Trivia Night", he was thought briefly to have stolenTheftIn common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...
the Flunes' television and donated it to the school.
Development and production
Mortified was created by screenwriter and author Angela WebberAngela Webber
Angela Webber was an Australian author, TV writer, producer and comedian.-Early life:Webber was born in 1954 to Bruce Webber, the head of light entertainment for ABC radio, and Nan, a journalist...
. Series director is Pino Amenta. It consists of 26 24-minute episodes. The first season of Mortified had a budget of A$9.3 million. It was shot entirely on location in Coolangatta on the Gold Coast
Gold Coast, Queensland
Gold Coast is a coastal city of Australia located in South East Queensland, 94km south of the state capital Brisbane. With a population approximately 540,000 in 2010, it is the second most populous city in the state, the sixth most populous city in the country, and also the most populous...
while most of the school scenes were filmed at the local Palm Beach Currumbin State High School, starting on 8 June 2005. Mortified was launched in Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
at MIPTV
MIPTV Media Market
-MIPTV:MIPTV is an event which takes place annually in Cannes, using the facilities and infrastructure which the town has developed over the years to host other important events such as the Cannes Film Festival amongst other events....
in April 2006.
International syndication
| Country / Region | Network(s) | Broadcast run | Title |
|---|---|---|---|
| Disney Channel Australia | Mortified | ||
| Disney Channel Brazil Disney Channel (Brazil) Disney Channel Brazil is an cable television channel and is an edition of the The Walt Disney Company-owned Disney Channel, broadcasting to Brazil. It is marketed to mostly children; however, in recent years the diversity of viewers has increased with an older audience... |
¡Ninguém Merece! | ||
| BBC Kids BBC Kids BBC Kids is a Canadian English language Category B specialty channel owned by Knowledge Network Corporation and BBC Worldwide. It's a commercial-free channel that airs programming aimed at youth ranging from pre-schoolers to teens.-Overview:... |
Mortified | ||
| Disney Channel France | |||
| KiKa KI.KA KI.KA is a public non-commercial free television channel based in Erfurt, Germany. It is a joint venture of national public television channels ARD, and ARD's constituent broadcasting institutions – BR, HR, MDR, NDR, Radio Bremen, RBB, Saarländischer Rundfunk, SWR, WDR and ZDF, and is targeted at... |
March 12, 2008 | Meine peinlichen Eltern | |
| Disney Channel India | |||
| RTÉ RTE RTÉ is the abbreviation for Raidió Teilifís Éireann, the public broadcasting service of the Republic of Ireland.RTE may also refer to:* Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 25th Prime Minister of Turkey... |
|||
| NHK NHK NHK is Japan's national public broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee.... |
February 19, 2007–? | ||
| Disney Channel Italy Disney Channel (Italy) Disney Channel Italia is the Italian version of Disney Channel. Disney Channel Italy also includes a +1 hour timeshift service , a +2 hours timeshift service , a channel for pre-school children , an English-audio channel with subtitles , and a channel for male teenagers... |
Perché a me | ||
| Disney Channel Latin America Disney Channel Latin America Disney Channel Latin America is an cable television channel and is an edition of The Walt Disney Company-owned Disney Channel, broadcasting to Latin America and the Caribbean. It is broadcast in five feeds, North Zone, Center Zone, South Zone,and the Pacific Zone... |
"¿Por qué a mí?" | ||
| Canal Panda Canal Panda Canal Panda is the first Portuguese cable television channel dedicated to children's programming, mostly animated series. The channel was founded in 1996 as Panda Club in Spain and Portugal, but the name was changed to Canal Panda in 1997. In 2000, the channel left Spain, thus concentrating... |
Que vida a minha | ||
| CBBC CBBC CBBC is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14... |
Mortified | ||
| Starz Kids & Family | March 1, 2011–present |
Crew
- Series creator: Angela Webber
- Executive producersExecutive producerAn executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
: Phillip Bowman, Jenny Buckland, Bernadette O'Mahony, Jo Horsburgh - ProducersTelevision producerThe primary role of a television Producer is to allow all aspects of video production, ranging from show idea development and cast hiring to shoot supervision and fact-checking...
: Phillip Bowman, Bernadette O'Mahony - WritersScreenwriterScreenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
: Angela Webber, Sam Carroll, Tim Gooding, Johanna PigottJohanna PigottJohanna Paton Pigott is an Australian musician, singer/songwriter and screenwriter. Her best known hit songs are Dragon's "Rain" which peaked at #2 on the Australia singles charts in 1983 and John Farnham's "Age of Reason". "Rain" was co-written with partner Dragon's Todd Hunter and his brother...
, Steve Wright, Max Dann, Chris Anastassiades, Shirley Pierce, Adam Bowen, Helen McWhirter - DirectorsTelevision directorA television director directs the activities involved in making a television program and is part of a television crew.-Duties:The duties of a television director vary depending on whether the production is live or recorded to video tape or video server .In both types of productions, the...
: Pino Amenta, Paul Moloney, Ian Gilmour, Michael Pattinson, Evan Clarry - Script editorsScript editorA script editor is a member of the production team of scripted television programmes, usually dramas and comedies. The script editor has many responsibilities including finding new script writers, developing storyline and series ideas with writers, ensuring that scripts are suitable for production...
: Sam Carroll, Steve Wright
Awards and nominations
| Year | Award | Result | Category | Recipient |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | New York Festivals Television Programming and Promotion Awards |
Won | Grand Award for Best Youth Program | |
| Gold World Medal for Youth Programs ages 7 to 12 | |
|||
| 2006 | Australian Film Institute Awards Australian Film Institute Awards The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Award, known as the AACTA Award , is an accolade presented annually by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts . The awards recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry and television industry, including directors,... |
Won | Best Children’s Television Drama | |
| Young Actor Award | Marny Kennedy | |||
| Nominee | Best Direction In Television | Pino Amenta (for the pilot episode "Taylor's DNA") |
||
| Best Screenplay In Television | Angela Webber (for the pilot episode "Taylor's DNA") |
|||
| Chicago International Children's Festival | Won | First Prize in the Live Action Television category | |
|
| 54th Columbus International Film and Video Festival | Bronze Plaque for Children and Youth Programs | |
||
| Australian Teachers of Media Awards | Best Children's Television Series | |
DVD release
A DVD of the series was released in PALPAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
format on 4 April 2007. Titled Mortified: Volume 1, the 2-disc DVD has a running time of 299 minutes and includes the first 13 episodes. Mortified: Volume 2, a 2-disc DVD consisting of episodes 14–26 (running time of 312 minutes), was released on 18 July 2007.