THE face is familiar and so is the voice. But wait a minute. Who is it again? And why on earth is he wearing a snorkel and a silly rubber thing around his neck on morning television?
He's TV and radio industry legend Jonathan 'Jono' Coleman, that's who. And he's wearing the snorkel because he's a bloody good sport who's not too proud to do wacky infomercials that earn a dollar for his employer.
The real question is where do we get one of these fantastic free jars! We wish we knew. Source: NewsComAu
If you're in your mid 30s or beyond, you'll remember Jono. He was one of the reporters on cult '80s kids show Simon Townsend's Wonder World, and he pretty much ruled the airwaves on UK and Australian FM radio for 20 years.
Coleman, right, with legendary comedian Spike Milligan. We salute you too, Jono. Source: Supplied
These days, Coleman rules the roost at Channel Ten's morning show Studio 10. You might think of him as the bits-and-pieces guy, as a mere slice of cheese in a great big televisual sandwich, but he's actually the bread holding the whole sandwich together.
Without Jono Coleman, Studio 10 would be such a rabble, its staff might as well turn up for work in the nude. Well, that is when they don't actually turn up in the nude.
Coleman's roles on Studio 10 are many and varied. He does a crowd gee-up here, a voiceover there and he's even presenting weekend slots now too. But it's the infomercials where most people first catch that cheery, ever-so-slightly cheesy personality.
Now you might think, hmmmm, infomercials are not exactly the glamorous pinnacle of the entertainment business, especially for a bloke with all that talent and experience. Well, Jono thinks they're just fine, thanks very much.
"Whenever I think to myself 'here I am selling vacuum cleaners', I think how lucky am I," he tells news.com.au.
"I started out in 1980 doing kids' TV on Wonder World and here I am 35 years later still doing TV at Channel Ten where it all started."
"On the big scale of things I'm so lucky I'm not in Syria or somewhere where so many horrible things are happening. I'm the luckiest person in the world to have a job I really love after 35 years. My motto is always to look on the bright side and have fun."
Joe Hildebrand has no doubt who the real male star of the show is. Source: NewsComAu
You've got to admire the guy. Here's a bloke who gets up early and comes to work each day just like the rest of us. His work is occasionally meaningful but mostly mundane, just like the rest of us. Yet Jono displays a ripper positive attitude each and every day. If only the rest of us could do that.
Coleman is 58 these days. He is married to Margot and has two kids, Emily, 17, and Oscar, 20.
"My daughter disapproves of my work until I go 'here's something I brought home, here are some One Direction tickets'," Coleman says.
Coleman's son, who is studying business overseas, is no less cheeky. "He says he's studying business so he can fire people like me," he jokes.
Coleman still comes across as young beyond his years. Perhaps that's because, as a man born on February 29 in a leap year, he's had only 14 birthdays. It might just also be because he's never taken his work too seriously.
One day when Coleman worked on Wonder World, he attended an Elton John press conference in Sydney. The famous singer had just purchased the British football team Watford, who are known as the Bees. Coleman showed up in a bee suit, and Elton was so impressed, he granted Coleman a rare one-on-one interview.
"I say to kids 'be yourself and have fun'," Coleman says. "It doesn't matter if you're working in a library or a shop or a supermarket, I just think you've just got to enjoy yourself wherever you are or you might as well walk out into middle of the road and finish it all.
"I'm sitting here here with polka dot socks on in the middle of the newsroom at Channel Ten and I'm having a great time."
People are so excited about Jono, they're rewinding his segments to watch them twice. Source: NewsComAu
Coleman has had to sell some extremely unusual things in his role as enthusiastic infomercial guy. Still on the bee theme, he's done infomercials for a product called bee venom, which is a kind of anti-ageing agent.
But the weirdest infomercial was probably this one. It was called "The Beef Oracle" and it's extremely funny.
Beyond the slapstick spectacle of Coleman interviewing a talking side-of-beef, there's much to admire here. Coleman's comic timing and sense of fun are spot on. He traverses a territory between pisstake and salesmanship with incredible slickness.
Love him, laugh at him, or both, the guy really is a professional and it's good to see him on the box. Especially when he's wearing more than a towel.
Oh by the way, yesterday's infomercial, in which Jono wore the snorkel, was for some sort of beauty product based on jellyfish extracts or something. We put it to Coleman that his own career has been a little like a jellyfish, drifting across the media sea and washing up wherever the tide takes him.
"That's how I've survived," he says. "I drift with the tide, have fun and just enjoy myself. I'd rather be doing what I'm doing than anything."
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