The Don Lane Show

ABBA performed "SOS" and "Fernando" and were interviewed by host Don Lane in between the songs on this talk and variety show.

                    SOS                                         Fernando
  

Agnetha taught Don how to pronounce her name, then Frida tried to teach him how to pronounce the the Swedish sound "sju".  Björn teased him about the Swedish tongue-twister "Sjutusensjuhundrasjuttisju sjösjuka sjömän" (7,777 Seasick Sailors!).

ABBA had to sneak out through the garage of their hotel to reach the TV studio due to fans besieging the hotel.

It had long been believed that this clip had been erased from the archives however, the great news from summer 2006 was that it had been found.  It was transferred from the live-to-air recording tape to a Umatic-segments tape in 1976 and then was discarded by Channel 9 in 1978 but luckily saved by someone before it got to the rubbish bin.  Apparently Channel 9 regularly chucked out stuff they didn't want any more to save tape and storage space - this included.  They've probably regretted the decision many times since!

The show was LIVE in some states on Monday and Thursday nights at 9.30pm. It went out LIVE in Sydney and Melbourne and was recorded from air to be played in other areas who didn't get it live, then copied over as the wanted segments had already been transferred to segments tapes.

Apparently there's 5 minutes more footage from behind-the-scenes lurking around somewhere!

There was a trailer for when it aired in another state the following week in Adelaide on Wednesday nights.

A Best of Don Lane DVD was released in 2005 but the only ABBA clip was from 1977 as that is the only clip they have left in the archives.