Acting for Two: Madeleine West as Dione Bliss and Andrea Somers.
Cast Incest: Ariel Kaplan, who plays Imogen, has been dating Harley Bonner, who plays Imogen's twin Josh, since 2014.
Casting Gag: When Sheila Canning (Colette Mann) met another woman with the same name in 2021, she was played by Shareena Clanton. The two had both previously played Doreen Anderson on Prisoner: Cell Block H and its remake Wentworth respectively.
Channel Hop: The show started on Seven Network in 1985 for a short run where it was almost meddled out of existence in the cradle because it didn't appeal to ratings homes in Sydney and taken off that channel; Network Ten rescued it and brought it to acclaim with the help of the BBC a year later, and it attained plenty of success to the point where Ten moved it over to their new digital network Eleven in 2011 to give it a jumpstart no other show could provide. The BBC carried the show in the UK until 2008, when it moved to Channel 5 because of overwhelming costs a public broadcaster could no longer provide. After the show's cancellation in 2022, it was Uncancelled thanks to Amazon Freevee.
Two years after Vivean Gray died, and years after she and her onscreen family had left the show, Mrs Mangel was revealed to have died while her granddaughter Jane Harris was visiting Erinsborough.
After Russell Kiefel died in November 2016, Russell Brennan died offscreen, impacting the Brennan family's storylines for some time afterward.
Creator Backlash: Alan Dale (Jim Robinson) very much hated his time in the programme, claiming he felt typecast for many years and the programme only paid enough to feed his family.
Jonathan Dutton (Tad Reeves, albeit several years after he had left), Scott Major (Lucas Fitzgerald) and Kate Kendall (Lauren Turner), among others.
Louna Maroun, who played Hope in Neighbours Vs Zombies, directed some additional scenes for that series.
Fake American: Tammin Sursok as fashionista Montana Marcel in a 2022 arc.
I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: The show has always had some cast overlap with Prisoner: Cell Block H, but the writers have especially been having fun with this since Colette Mann joined as Sheila Canning. In particular, two episodes in 2017 featured Val Lehman as Sheila's high school friend Joanne, while an episode in February 2019 had four of her co-stars (Betty Bobbitt, Jane Clifton, Jenny Lovell and Jentah Sobott) appear as members of a long-standing book club that Sheila had recently joined and dragged Susan (Jackie Woodburne, also from Prisoner, though she never shared a episode with the others except for Lovell) along to. The episode coincided with a Prisoner reunion in real life, and the book club scenes were loaded with references, such as Sobott's character Chrissie stating she was "burning alive" in her outfit and being described as "quiet as a mouse", context Sobott's Prisoner character Heather "Mouse" Trappe was killed in a fire Bobbitt's character Erica stating that Karl could "use my steam press any time", context The Wentworth laundry had a steam press which was used to burn a new prisoner's hand, in an iconic scene in the first episode, though Bobbitt hadn't joined the show yet and Clifton's character Meg mentioning her friend Doreen who used to sleep with a teddy bear context Colette Mann played Doreen Anderson/Burns, a Womanchild who slept with a teddy bear and reminiscing about her husband and how he "used to give me roses. I wish he could again." context Prisoner's theme song. Ironically, all four of them were quite judgemental when Sheila mentioned that her son Gary had been in prison.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: Soap Operas the world over are known for never getting released on commercial video, due to their excessive length - however, Shock Entertainment attempted to make it an aversion to this with systematic DVD releases, but stopped after a year (four volumes of From The Beginning and one of The Charlene Years were out by that time, adding up to 297 episodes, in addition to a few dozen that had been released in collections previously), most likely due to poor sales.
Episode #1000 covered Des and Jane's engagement party, crashed by Jane's ex Mike. Also included Joe and Kerry getting engaged and Hilary announcing that Matt was her son.
Episode #2000 was Helen's birthday party, which coincided with Philip and Julie reconciling and Stephen walking again.
Episode #3000 was comparatively uneventful, coming as it did one week after the show's most cliffhanger-heavy season final yet. They did manage to work a party into it, when Susan left temporarily to fill in at another school.
Episode #4000 had Flick rescuing Lou and Rosie from a fire and admitting to Marc she was in love with him.
The show's 20th anniversary was celebrated with an in-universe documentary featuring numerous former Ramsey Street residents. The same week saw Karl and Isabelle's relationship crumble as Karl found out that she had lied about him being the father of her baby.
Episode #5000 had Paul being buried alive by his murderous son Robert, while the preceding week included Boyd and Janae's wedding.
Episode #6000 ended with another apparent attempt on Paul's life, and the preceding week included Donna and Ringo's wedding.
Episode #7000 features Toadie and Sonya hosting a naturists lunch and Karl winning a fortune on a scratchie card.
The 30th Anniversary was marked in-universe by the Erinsborough Festival, with numerous former residents returning, including several who hadn't been seen in the street for over twenty years, one who had become world-famous in and out of universe (and ended up performing at the festival), and one who had been dead for nearly fourteen years. The last week of the celebration also included Amber and Daniel's wedding, which ended in disaster after Daniel and Imogen were stuck down a well and were believed to have run off together.
Episode #8000 marks the first appearance of No. 34 and its longtime resident Valerie Grundy. She's found dead later in the episode, with the main cast finding a lot of Ramsay Street memorabilia in her house, and the experience of cleaning it up inspires Toadie to put on a Christmas concert.
#8205 has a scene where Karl buys Susan a beautiful necklace, before admitting that he got a discount on it because someone had the pendant inscribed with "Happy 25th Anniversary" before changing their mind. "It's not our anniversary or anything, but - hey, we must be celebrating 25 years of something." Indeed, the episode marks the 25th anniversary of the Kennedys arriving in the street (though Karl had made his first appearance a couple of weeks earlier).
The show's 35th anniversary was marked by a week of hour-long episodes, and in each of these, the first half-hour was focused on another event at Lassiters, this time a wedding expo, which not only had several past characters returning for various reasons but had several of those charcters pairing up again, some for the first time in decades, partly for the sake of that wedding expo: Paige Smith and Mark Brennan, Jane Harris and Des Clarke, Lucy Robinson and Mark Gottlieb, and Sky Mangel and Lana Crawford. The second half of each episode was focused on several characters going on a camping trip on an island to celebrate Elly Conway's 35th birthday, coinciding with the endgame of the Finn Kelly story arc that had been going since 2017, with Finn turning evil again after secretly getting his memory back, and using the trip to try to kill his current girlfriend Bea and get back with Elly. The island story intersected with the wedding expo at several points, in particular when Finn also planted a bomb in one of the gift-boxes that was supposed to go to Lucy Robinson, only for it to instead end up in the hands of Prue Wallace, who set off the bomb. In addition, Finn murdered Gary Canning with a bow and arrow when he found Bea and Harlow trapped down a mine and tried to rescue them.
Scott Robinson, Lucy Robinson (twice), Beverly Robinson (nee Marshall), Julie Martin (nee Robinson), Philip Martin, Michael and Debbie Martin (twice in the latter case), Toby and Sky Mangel, Cody Willis, Cheryl Stark (briefly), Louise "Lolly" Carpenter (later combined with The Original Darrin), Jack Scully, Libby Kennedy (briefly), Ben Kirk (three times), Declan Napier, Lauren Turner (nee Carpenter), Brad Willis (also twice, though his original two-episode guest stint was very rarely brought up after the rest of the Willis family joined the show), Pierce Greyson (also a case of The Original Darrin), Nell Rebecchi, Byron and Nicolette Stone, and, appropriately enough, Darren Stark.
A few of these have been subject to Lampshade Hanging: in addition to the Pierce scene noted below, it came up twice with Lucy Robinson during her 2022 return, first when Glen Donnelly looked in Harold's history book and said, "If I didn't know better I'd think these photos were of three different people," and again when Shane Ramsey met her for the first time in over thirty years and said, "I have to admit, I wouldn't have recognised you."
Louise "Lolly" Carpenter was played by Jiordan Anna Tolli from 1994 (shortly after the character was born) to 2001. She returned in 2007 for a few months, now played by Adelaide Kane before leaving again. Jiordan later reprised the role for an episode in 2013. (This was because Adelade Kane had gone onto bigger and better things in America).
Tim Robards abruptly left the show in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic (there was a risk of him being separated from his pregnant wife due to interstate travel restrictions) and was replaced as Pierce Greyson by Don Hany for the last month of his tenure, as well as a guest stint the following year. Robards returned as Pierce in June 2022. The show seemed to lampshade this when Chloe confronted Pierce over his role in Paul and Leo's manipulation the previous year that led to her breakup with Nicolette. "I didn't think you were capable of something like that. It's like you were a completely different person."
The Other Marty: Carla Bonner replaced Emma Roche as Stephanie Scully after a few weeks of filming.
Playing Against Type: Debra Lawrance is best known in soap opera circles for playing the second Pippa Fletcher/Ross on Home and Away, who was typically portrayed as everything a foster parent should be. When she appeared in Neighbours in 2018 as the second Liz Conway, she was playing the kind of mother whose children would have been taken in by Pippa. context Specifically, Liz had sent her troubled daughter Bea to her father Lars - a businessman she had had an affair with before he went back to his wife - then made no effort to contact her for years afterward, only finding out later that Bea had run away from him and been living on the streets of Sydney. She also lied to Bea that she was sending her to Lars because her sister Elly wanted her gone, to hide the truth that she didn't want a painful reminder of the man she loved, causing considerable resentment between the two sisters after they were reunited. And to top it off, after all this is exposed, she tries to get back her daughters' sympathy with a Wounded Gazelle Gambit, claiming to have been attacked by their stalker Finn Kelly.
Promoted Fangirl: Like most Aussies, Louna Maroun was a longtime fan of the show, and was over the moon when she not only got to work on Neighbours Vs Zombies, but also direct the actors, that she grew up watching as well.
Jason Donovan (Scott Robinson)'s father Terence Donovan playing Doug Willis, and his half-sister Stephanie McIntosh playing Sky Mangel years later. Jason's daughter Jemma was later cast as Harlow Robinson (Scott's great niece).
Courtney Compagnino (Natasha Kovac in 1990) and Sheridan Compagnino (Paul Robinson's illegitimate daughter Amy in 1992) are sisters. Courtney was part of the final female lineup of the childrens' variety show Young Talent Time in 1988. Had there been a 1989 season of YTT, Sheridan would have followed Courtney into the Young Talent Team. Anthony Callea stated much later that he and Sheridan had both been prepared by John Young to begin YTT filming, the respective parents of the little man and little lady had signed their childrens' contracts... and then came the fateful press statement from Network Ten that "Young Talent Time will not be resuming production in 1989".
Fletcher and Blake O'Leary playing unrelated characters (Mickey Gannon and Ben Kirk respectively) in the late-2000s.
Carla Bonner (Stephanie Scully) and her son Harley Bonner (Josh Willis). Got an amusing Lampshade Hanging when Josh was introduced to Steph, and recognised her but couldn't place her (which worked in-universe, because Josh's family had arrived in the street during the last week of her previous stint on the show, just before she was arrested for kidnapping).
Real Life Writes the Plot: In 2022, it was stated outright how the 2004 plane crash (that killed off half the Bishops) was written in because they needed to trim the massive cast.
Three storylines have involved Paul Robinson being confronted with illegitimate children: Amy Williams, first introduced in 1988, Oliver Barnes in 2007 (a false alarm in this case, but Paul was involved with Oliver's mother Rebecca around the same time) and David and Leo Tanaka in 2017. In addition, the latter two both had Surprise Incest complications due to the character being in a relationship with one of Paul's daughters (Oliver and Elle, Leo and Amy). Making it stranger is that all four of these characters were, or should have been, conceived in 1985 (the Tanakas shortly before the series began, and Amy and Oliver during Paul's brief career as a flight attendant, though Oliver's stated age doesn't fit the timeframe of that career).
Two story arcs involving Paul's family, in 2013 and 2021. Both involve a teenage male character dating one of Paul's female relatives (Mason Turner and Paul's niece Kate Ramsay in 2013, Brent Colefax and Paul's granddaughter Harlow Robinson in 2021). Both involve the boy getting in trouble with criminals and being coerced into a robbery that indirectly leads to several injuries (or in 2013, multiple deaths). Both involve the boy being arrested afterward, both have Paul hiring him a lawyer to make himself look good to his family, while secretly making plans to throw the boy under the bus. Where the two differ is that in 2013 Paul hires Tim Collins and directly tells him to do a bad job with Mason, while in 2021 he hires Toadie (having long since fallen out with Tim) and then conspires with the other criminal to pin everything on Brent. And while Mason is able to avoid prison when Toadie figures out what's going on and agrees to take over his defense, Brent is only able to secure a deal with the judge by joining the defense force, separating him from Harlow anyway.
In 1993, Jim's family tried to make him see that his girlfriend Fiona was only after his money, leading to him become estranged from the rest. Elements of this storyline were repeated just a year later when Len Mangel - Mrs Mangel's ex-husband - was only after Helen's money, and once again everyone in the family could see it except her.
In 2024, just five years after Rob Robinson holds a vulnerable woman (Elly Conway when she is about to give birth) at knifepoint at number 26, this happens again with Eden Shaw holding Melanie Pearson hostage while she is convalescing after her accident at the Erinsborough High School demonstration.
Role Reprise: Many of the shows former stars returned for the Grand Finale, some of them decades after their last appearance.
Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan did date in real life during Scott and Charlene's arc, and she famously left him for Michael Hutchence of INXS shortly after their duet "Especially For You".
Ariel Kaplan and Harley Bonner have been dating since 2014...despite the fact that they play twins. See Cast Incest.
Christopher Milligan (Kyle) and Jenna Rosenow (Amber) have been together since 2013.
Nick Carrafa (Tony) met Fiona Corke (Gail) in 1987 when Carrafa was booked for a guest arc. They fell in love in real life and have been married since.
When Todd Landers had the accident which eventually killed him, Jim asked Madge to go to the Robinson house to wait for Helen to give her the news. With mobile phone ownership much more widespread now, needless to say it is unlikely that a storyline would develop that way nowadays. Similarly, in the same episode Jim rung Phoebe and Dorothy at the abortion clinic to tell them about the accident, whereas now he would ring one of them on their mobiles.
Furthermore, a few months later Madge was trapped in her workplace the night before she left for Brisbane - again she didn't have a phone to call for help.
Even as late as 1997-98 this was an issue: When Billy Kennedy was away in a swimming competition in Sydney, his girlfriend Anne Wilkinson travelled all the way there "because he was never in his room and wouldn't answer the phone". Further, during that same pair of episodes, Lou Carpenter spent ages looking for Sarah Beaumont to tell her that her housemate Ben had been in a racing car accident. What's more, in the run-up to Helen Daniels' funeral, Rosemary had to use the Robinsons'/Martins' home computer to do some work, whereas now she'd probably have her own laptop or even smartphone to do so.
Alan Dale, who played Paul Robinson's father Jim, is only 11 years older than Stefan Dennis in real life. Overlaps with Dawson Casting, as Dennis is about six years older than Paul was meant to be.
Nick Waters was only 34 when he played Fred Mitchell, several years younger than Anne Charleston as Madge, making him about 14 when he would have married Madge and not much older when Henry and Charlene were born.
Shane Connor (b.1959) and Carla Bonner (b.1973) played Joe Scully and his daughter Stephanie. Again overlaps with Dawson Casting in Stephanie's case.
Andrew McFarlane played Max Hoyland's father Bobby, despite being only 13 years older than Stephen Lovatt and ten years younger than Maggie Miller as his ex-wife Rosie.
Toadie was originally going to illegally adopt an East Timorese orphan from Indonesia in a 2008 storyline as it was mentioned by him as a plan to spite Steph but Toadie's actor Ryan Moloney felt it was too silly, so it was ultimately discarded (though not before Toadie had tried to go through the application process but his fraud was exposed) and replaced by him adopting Callum instead.
At first, they wanted to have Toadie adopt a kid from East Timor illegally, which I thought was just ridiculous. And it was just to spite Steph! I was like, 'What are we doing?' Then we never mentioned it again, which I think is worse. We just don't talk about that now, but having Callum there is really cool.
Hugh Jackman was originally cast as Cameron Hudson in 1992, but he had to back out after being accepted to the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.
Alan Fletcher played guest character Greg Cooper in 1987, later joining permanently in 1994 as Karl Kennedy.
Colette Mann filled in for Caroline Gilmer as Cheryl Stark for a few weeks in 1995, before returning in 2012 as Sheila Canning.
Scott Major played the original Darren Stark in 1993, before returning in 2008 as Lucas Fitzgerald.
Ally Fowler played the regular role of Zoe Davis in 1986, and returned in 2016 as Nina Williams.
One possibly justified case was Tim Phillipps, who first appeared in 2007 as Fox, a brain tumour-induced hallucination of Paul, before returning in 2014 as Daniel Robinson, Paul's nephew.
Another justified (though likely unintentional) case with Benjamin Grant Mitchell, who played the original Brad Willis in two episodes before later being cast as Brad's cousin Cameron Hudson. He would also much later play the unrelated Matt Freedman.
Alyce Platt played student Jen Handley in 1995-96, before returning two decades later to play scheming author Olivia Bell.
Charles "Bud" Tingwell had a brief guest role as Bert Willis (Doug's father) and a longer recurring role as Henry O'Rourke (Lyn Scully's adoptive father).
Maria Mercedes has played both Lucia Cammenitti and much more recently Estelle Petrides.
The 1952 Short Film
Creator's Favorite: Years after making this short, Norman would state that if all of his films were destroyed and he could only save one, he would choose this one as he felt the message was important for the world.
with Prisoner: Cell Block H, but the writers have especially been having fun with this since Colette Mann joined as Sheila Canning. In particular, two episodes in 2017 featured Val Lehman as Sheila's high school friend Joanne, while an episode in February 2019 had four of her co-stars (Betty Bobbitt, Jane Clifton, Jenny Lovell and Jentah Sobott) appear as members of a long-standing book club that Sheila had recently joined and dragged Susan (Jackie Woodburne, also from Prisoner, though she never shared a episode with the others except for Lovell) along to. The episode coincided with a Prisoner reunion in real life, and the book club scenes were loaded with references, such as Sobott's character Chrissie stating she was "burning alive" in her outfit and being described as "quiet as a mouse", context Bobbitt's character Erica stating that Karl could "use my steam press any time", context and Clifton's character Meg mentioning her friend Doreen who used to sleep with a teddy bear context and reminiscing about her husband and how he "used to give me roses. I wish he could again." context Ironically, all four of them were quite judgemental when Sheila mentioned that her son Gary had been in prison.