Secret agent catering to young at heart

By Michael Shmith
March 18, 2005
Scooter, played by Martin Sharpe.

Scooter, played by Martin Sharpe.

Scooter: Secret Agent (4pm, Ten)

When you examine the paltry line-up of Friday television - the plethora of makeover and madeover shows, but, to balance this, the quirky travelogue series, Lonely Planet: Six Degrees, and the excellent Blue Murder - it's sometimes beneficial to retreat to earlier in the day. This could mean the news in Russian or Arabic, or, a bit later, the stern visage of Judge Judy or the questing face of St Oprah.

Far better, then, to cross to Ten at tea-time for Scooter: Secret Agent. This may be for the younger audience, but for the young at heart or the newly senile, it's pure escapism and innocent, joyous fun.

Scooter, a pizza-delivery boy turned agent, is played by Martin Sharpe, who combines the frizzy hair of Harpo Marx, the neuroses of Gene Wilder, the accident-proneness of Inspector Clouseau, and the espionage tactics of Maxwell Smart.

All this in the one wiry body (he also looks like his own bendy rubber toy) could be too much, but Sharpe manages to avoid pure caricature, yet retains the essential sense of parody. This is due partly to the writing, but also to the production standards, which are lavish by Australian standards and not, for once, overwhelmed by special effects.

Today's episode, The Mummy's Curse, finds our hero entering a museum in his usual fashion - upside-down and getting his head wedged in a toilet bowl - and creating so much trouble in foiling three thieves out to steal the aforementioned artefact that one would think the curse of ancient times has met its match. If I were the mummy, I'd tighten my bandages and keep mum for a few centuries.

It doesn't help that Scooter, on a sortie to the museum, has accidentally separated the corpse's little finger from the rest of it - a nasty little objet trouvee that keeps rattling around and frightening Scooter's noble assistants, Melanie (Talia Zucker) and Katrina (Charlene Tjoe).

The best thing about Scooter: Secret Agent is its refusal to take things seriously.

Even the villains of the piece (we used to call them baddies) have a basic charm that keeps them on the side of niceness, if not the law.

Then there's the neat cameo from Kate Fitzpatrick, as Scooter's boss, Ambrosia, who's seen only via a computer screen, but is no less effective for it. With the raising of an eyebrow, Fitzpatrick ensures she means business. Even Scooter understands her.


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