After hosting the Logies last year, Sam Pang got some valuable feedback from his colleagues, Have You Been Paying Attention? host Tom Gleisner and The Front Bar’s Mick Molloy.
“Mick Molloy said it was a debacle and almost brought the industry down, and Tommy Gleisner said I should never do it again,” Sam tells TV WEEK. “Once Tommy tells me anything, usually my gut reaction is to do the opposite. That’s why I’m back.”
All joking aside, hosting the Logies last year was a big deal for the 50-year-old comedian, and he was “very happy” to be invited to do it again.
“It was just a wonderful celebration of the television industry in this country, which I’m very lucky to be a part of,” he adds.
As a kid growing up in Melbourne, Sam would watch the Logies on TV, at a time when legends like Bert Newton and Daryl Somers were hosting.
“That’s what made last year very, very special,” Sam says. “I remember when Have You Been Paying Attention? first got nominated, that was a big thrill to go along, and then to host it… it’s not something that you would even consider possible.”
Something else Sam watched on TV growing up: A Country Practice, starring his mum’s cousin Lorrae Desmond as Shirley Gilroy.
“That was always a fun thing to say, that mum’s cousin was Lorrae Desmond,” Sam says. “Not that we ever met her.”
Sam finally got to meet Lorrae in 2017, when he was asked to present an award at the Logies and said he would like to do it with his mum’s famous cousin, “if you can find her”. Lorrae, who was 87 at the time, was found, and she presented the award alongside Sam.
“I think Mum was proud,” he says. “Dad wasn’t watching.”
While Sam never dreamed of a career in TV growing up, he did, like a lot of kids, dream of becoming an AFL player, making it as far as the Collingwood under-19s.
“And then I quickly learnt that I was not good enough,” he adds. “So that dream was taken away very, very early and correctly.”
Another thing Sam doesn’t want to draw too much attention to: his acting roles, including his brief appearance in season one of Kitty Flanagan’s hit legal comedy Fisk.
“You saw my performance in season one of Fisk, you can see why I wasn’t in season two of Fisk,” he says. “People who have shows like Kitty, I think they’re just struggling for real actors, so they get their friends to pop in for a cameo.”
Sam, who describes Kitty as a close friend (“she always describes me as a work colleague”), will never forget the moment at the 2022 Logies when she was announced as Most Popular Actress and he had to accept the award on her behalf.
“I’m going, ‘Oh my God!’” he remembers. “I think the whole room was in shock.
“But the good news is I think she’s coming this year. She’s nominated and she’s actually going to come. What a miracle!”
Currently, Sam is busy working on his material for this year’s awards, being held in Sydney on August 18.
Last year, he had the audience laughing with his opening monologue, where he targeted everyone from Hamish Blake to David Koch to Karl Stefanovic, who he said agreed to hosting the Logies “as long the show was held in a park in Noosa”.
So who is Sam planning to target this year?
“Target, that’s a strong word,” he says. “Just celebrate with love and humour, obviously. I think anyone in the room should feel as though they might get a mention, but like I said, it’s never mean-spirited and everyone’s there to have a good time.
“It’s a long night, so we should just try to have as much fun as we can along the way.”
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