Brace for the return of all your Hey Hey favourites: Daryl Somers, Ozzie Ostrich, Dickie Knee and Clint Eastwood.

It’s well known that smell and memory are closely linked. Whenever I get caught in a fug of cheap perfume, I instantly think of Hey Hey It’s Saturday.

An entire generation was babysat by Daryl and the gang while their parents got dolled up for a big night of, in my parents’ case, Victor Borge or Billy Connolly (”Who’s he, Dad?” “He’s not for children, Andy.”). As mum draped herself in fake fur and Chanel No. 8, my sister and I were inundated by live zaniness and the reassuringly asinine Somers. But I no longer need to pass an 80-year-old woman in David Jones to recreate that sensation, as Channel Nine’s program director Michael Healy has announced the variety show’s return in 2009.

The news comes hot on the heels of two incidents: former producer Gavan Disney getting acquitted on indecent assault and rape charges and a currently-75,000-strong Facebook fan page. These occurrences may or may not be directly related to the show returning for two “one-off” specials this year (yes, it’s an oxymoron and yes, we all know exactly what they mean).

The news has sparking a tidal wave of online nostalgia. Obviously the Facebook fan page is  predominantly “pro” the prodigal Plucka, but the general public have responded with some apprehension. Herald Sun columnist Sally Morrell urged them to reconsider, suggesting that there’s little possibility of it successfully spanning the generations like it used to. But really, did anyone keep watching Hey Hey through their teens?

The most potent argument against the show’s revival is its comedic style. Plucka Duck’s rebellious antics seem petulant now, Dickie Knee’s constant homophobia during the Molly’s Melodrama segment would be classed as sexual harassment and Somers was possibly even more of a bewildered mannequin on Dancing With The Stars. With so much access to so many different styles of comedy now, the broad Vaudeville of Hey Hey It’s Saturday looks as outdated as Ken Morgan’s poodle mullet. A decade later, it might’ve moved from tired to embarrassing.

What could work, though, are the “celebrity” segments on the show. Every member of Generation Y knows that fame is their ticket to personal success, so Red Faces could devolve into a riotous farce when they admit all the people too insane for Australia’s Got Talent. And we have a surfeit of famous and semi-famous faces desperate to make idiots of themselves on Celebrity Head.

It seems that most of the boosters cheering this news are tired of gory US police procedurals and exploitative reality shows and just want homegrown Aussie anarchy. If we think the show will be too sophisticated for Australian tastes in 2009, we must remember from the all-too-real satire of The Castle: the only thing Darryl Kerrigan loved more than Hey Hey It’s Saturday was The Best Of Hey Hey It’s Saturday.

Feel free to share your memories (Elliot Goblet and Raymond J Bartholomeuz) and fears (the return of Elliot Goblet and Raymond J Bartholomeuz) below.