Sam Kekovich
"Slammin'" Sam Kekovich (born March 11, 1950) is an Australian media personality and former Australian rules football player. He is well known for his controversial behaviour, both on and off the field, and his advocacy for the consumption of lamb. He is also well known for his satires as spokesman for Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) to promote lamb.
VFL Career
Kekovich started his career with the North Melbourne football club in 1968, and in the following year, won the club's best and fairest award, and was the club's top goalkicker, kicking 56 goals. From that point, his brilliance was displayed only in flashes as he seemed to put more effort into other non-football activities, including soccer, trampolining, and posing naked in the "Truth" newspaper. These began to grate with those in power at the Kangaroos. However, he did play a role in the club's breakthrough premiership win in 1975.
After playing 125 VFL games for the Kangaroos between 1968 and 1976, he moved to Collingwood in 1977, but only played four games, retiring that season.
Media Career
He has carried on his flamboyant style into the media sector, being most notable for his rants on the ABC show The Fat and a breakfast show on Melbourne radio station 3AK. He also appears on Triple M's pre-match AFL coverage and is on pti Australia on ESPN.
Kekovich's direct-to-camera TV monologues are done deadpan and use wide-ranging cultural references. They normally place in contrast many disparate or incongruous verbal images and ideas, ending with him saying his trademark, "You know it makes sense. I'm Sam Kekovich." He has performed these 'rants' on commercials for North Melbourne FC membership drives, Dan Murphy's bottle shops, and, perhaps most famously, encouraging people to act less 'unAustralian' on Australia Day by eating lamb.
In the lead-up to Australia Day 2005, Kekovich headed an advertising campaign encouraging people to eat more Australian lamb. In this particular ad campaign, he labeled vegetarians as being "un-Australian", provoking outrage from groups such as animal rights activists. The Australian Advertising Standards Board allowed the ads to remain on the air, as they were considered satirical, despite viewers' complaints. He did a similar ad in 2006, and although he did not target Vegetarians, he did claim that many of the tragedies befalling Australians in 2005, such as the 2005 Cronulla riots and a scandal at the 2005 Ashes series, may have panned out differently if Australians had more lamb.
2005 Lamb advertising campaign
There’s nothing worse than being unAustralian. I should know, I’ve been Australian all my life. And I’m sickened by the creeping tide of unAustralianism eroding our great traditions, like our custom of eating lamb on Australia Day.
UnAustralianism is everywhere. For example, people wearing those plastic, brightly-coloured flip-flop shoes with flowers on them. What’s wrong with rubber thongs in simple primary colours? And if I hear another person say “thong", when they mean those swimming costumes poncey Brazilian blokes wear up their bums, I’ll do my block.
Sadly, the scourge of unAustralianism has even infected our national day. A balanced Australia Day diet should consist of a few nice, juicy lamb chops and beer. And perhaps a bit of pavlova for those with a sweet tooth. Yet your long-haired, dole-bludging types are indulging their pierced tastebuds in all manner of exotic, foreign, often vegetarian cuisine: Chicken burger value meals, pizzas, a number 42 with rice... It’s an absolute disgrace. And people ask why we need capital punishment.
Do you think the diggers in the trenches were fighting for tofu sausages? No. They were thinking of grabbing a lamb chop off the barbie with their bare fingers, sustaining third degree burns, then sticking their hands into a relieving esky to fish out a cold one.
Look at our national song, Waltzing Matilda. It’s about a bloke trying to get a nice bit of lamb into his tuckerbag, not spicy chicken wings!
The soap-avoiding, pot-smoking, hippy vegetarians may disagree with me, but they can get stuffed. They know the way to the airport, and if they don’t I’ll show them.
So the message is clear, even for you backpackers: roll out the barbie, ensure the gas bottle’s filled, stack the fridge full of lamb, and prepare the invitation list. So don’t be unAustralian. Serve lamb on Australia Day.
You know it makes sense, I’m Sam Kekovich.
2006 Lamb advertising campaign
My fellow Australians,
The incidents of unAustralian behaviour over the past year was enough to make me choke on my lamb chops. And it was all down to one thing, not enough lamb.
For example, Australian models holidaying in Asia would get in a less trouble if they carried a couple of lamb chops in their handbags.
Lamb could have prevented the boofheads perpetrating violence on our beaches. It’s bloody hard to bash someone with a cutlet.
And we might not have lost The Ashes if our cricketers picked up lamb chops instead of mobile phones. Why on Earth did they dispatch lurid text messages to English trollops when plenty of Aussie sheilas would gladly target their middle stump?
Yet as mishaps spread across the land like bird flu through a Chinese chicken coop, what were we doing about it? Bugger all. It's time to remind ourselves of what lies at the core of our national identity: a lamb chop on a barbie.
Being Australian doesn’t mean you have to call the opposition captain a wanker even if he is. Or smother everything in tomato sauce ‘till it resembles an outpatient in a casualty ward. Or pull on a pair of budgie smugglers. I’d prefer you didn’t. And you don’t have to spend every Friday night on the piss ‘till your best friend looks like Elle Macpherson, throw up in the cab, then trip over the garden gnome before passing out on your front lawn.
In fact, to be as Australian as I am, don your apron – mine says, "Chop Gun" – whack some nice juicy lamb chops on the barbie, invite everyone over – if you can’t pronounce their name, just call them "mate" – and celebrate living in the best bloody country on Earth. So don’t be unAustralian. Serve lamb on Australia Day.
You know it makes sense, I’m Sam Kekovich.
2007 Lamb advertising campaign
Kekovich aired a three-minute-long commercial on January 14, 2007, in support of eating lamb on Australia Day. A website has been launched with the TV ad, www.votelamb.com.au.
In this election year, Australians are faced with a stark choice: Allow unAustralianism to flourish, or take a stand against it, before it becomes as prevalent as exposed genitals on a reality television show.
I love Australia: Her far horizons, Her jewel sea, the Aussie people, and our Australian way of life. In the past year, I’ve travelled all over this wide brown land. I’ve met a few people, both young and old, and listened to what they have to say. I’ve seen firsthand the devastation that unAustralianism has caused and frankly, I’ve had a gutful, the desecration of the Australian flag was bad enough. Imagine if people started burning lamb chops as well.
And unAustralianism played a role in the greatest disaster that befallen our nation since tofu, the early retirement of our greatest Olympic swimmer. Is there anything more unAustralian, than those gold medal hungry Yanks who tried to poison a big hearted Aussie champion, with the lure of Hollywood, just to stop him racing? It’s like Phar Lap all over again. That’s the danger of too much L.A., and not enough L-A-M-B.
Our junket loving, limousine riding, over-superannuated politicians will bombard you with promises in the coming months. But throwing money at the problem is not the answer; we need to throw lamb at it instead. So men and women of Australia, it’s time. It’s time for the Australia Day Party.
Our multi-prong lamb plan will take tax cuts off the table and dish out lamb cuts instead. Extradite the terrorists who plan gas attacks on the Aussie cricket team in London and put their skills to good use filling barbeque gas bottles. They shouldn’t mind the odd explosion. Scrap English tests for migrants. Who cares if they use their tongue, as long as they can use their tongs? Speaking of tests, there’s one way to keep The Ashes permanently in Australia: Make our own! The ashes from a good lamb barbie are a lot better than some burnt Pommy stump anyway.
And reduce global warming, by finding alternatives to fossil fuels to power barbies. Uranium for example, think how many lamb chops a portable nuclear reactor could cook. If the koala-suit-wearing, tree-hugging, alfalfa-munching lobby has problem with that, they can chain themselves to the nearest plane. I hear North Korea’s nice this time of year.
But governments can’t stop unAustralianism alone. A lamb-led recovery has to start at the grassroots, next to the Hills Hoist with the Australia Day Party. It’s a simple concept: on January 26th, all Australians should gather in backyards around the nation. Throw some lamb chops on the barbie, and have an Australia Day party of their own.
My fellow Australians, I have a dream that by Australia Day 2007, no Australian child will be living without a nice juicy lamb chop. And I have a dream, that on Australia Day, mung beans and lamb chops can sit together side-by-side on the same plate, as long as it’s not mine. And I have a dream that lamb can unite Australians of all colours and creeds, even hairy-legged, sandal-wearing lentil eaters. So don’t be unAustralian, vote lamb on Australia Day.
You know it makes sense, I’m Sam Kekovich.
(Authorised by D. Thomason of the Australia Day Party. Spoken by yours truly.)