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Australian TV character created by Garry McDonald

Norman Gunston is a satirical TV character performed by Australian actor and comedian Garry McDonald. Norman Gunston was primarily well known in his native Australia, and to a lesser extent, the United States during the mid to late 1970s. He was the only Gold Logie winning fictional character on Australian television, with McDonald collecting the 1976 Gold Logie and the George Wallace Memorial Logie for Best New Talent in character.

The Gunston character was originally conceived by comedy writer Wendy Skelcher and first appeared as a minor character to appear in a single sketch in the second series of the cult Australian TV comedy series The Aunty Jack Show in 1973. Cast member Garry McDonald portrayed Gunston as a dull and talentless local TV reporter from the industrial city of Wollongong – a locale that was the butt of many jokes throughout the series. The Gunston character made enough of an impression for him to be revived in a subsequent comedy mini series made by the Aunty Jack team, Wollongong the Brave (1974), in which he starred in a satirical mock documentary Norman Gunston: The Golden Weeks. His segments as Norman in What's on in Wollongong became one of the most popular parts of the Aunty Jack Show, and Norman appeared on the Aunty Jack Sings Wollongong album along with McDonald's other character, Kid Eager.

In his later and most famous incarnation, Gunston had evolved to become the unlikely host of his own national TV variety show, The Norman Gunston Show, which premiered with a live broadcast on ABC television on 18 May 1975. Dubbed "the little Aussie bleeder" (a play on the term "Aussie battler"), he satirised parochial Australian culture, media "personalities" and egocentric talk show hosts. After a faltering start, the Norman Gunston Show rapidly gained a huge national audience and the series became the pre eminent Australian TV comedy program of its day, with McDonald winning a Gold Logie and having several pop hits. He is, notably, the only Logie recipient who has received the award in the name of his character rather than in his own name. According to McDonald, the Gunston character and his show were initially devised as a parody of an (unintentionally bad) late night Sydney TV variety show of the early 1970s hosted by expatriate American club entertainer Tommy Leonetti. The series producer director was John Eastway.

In 1978, the Australian Seven Network aired another Norman Gunston series, which continued over an 18 month period till 1979. Ten 60 minute episodes were produced by John Eastway and ATN7. Highlights of this series were also screened on UK Channel 4 TV from November to December 1982. In February and March 1981, Channel 7 aired a program called Gunston's Australia, which intended to show the Gunston character approaching the end of his shelf life. In a satirical reference to personalities like former ABC current affairs host Bill Peach, the series parodied the perennial Australian TV practice of hiring celebrities to host magazine style programs after leaving the show that had brought them to fame. Wearing a safari jacket and shorts, Gunston travelled around outback Australia, interfering and adventuring in high and low places in his usual cack handed manner. This series was later screened from February to March 1983 on UK Channel 4 TV. In 1985, a 2 hour video was released titled, The Gunston Tapes. This was a compilation of interviews and comic sketches from the first, second and third 1975–1976 ABC TV series. McDonald also temporarily revived the Gunston character for the purpose of narrating the video. In February and March 1993, McDonald briefly revived the Gunston character for the Channel 7 network. However, by the time the series premiered McDonald was suffering from severe depression, and his much publicised nervous breakdown and abrupt departure saw the series prematurely terminated. A 3 set DVD compilation of the 1993 series was subsequently released in 2003. During the late 1990s, Foxtel's The Comedy Channel repeated all but the premiere episode from the 1975–76 ABC series. (A previously unaired pilot was screened in place of episode one, which is presumed lost.) This marked the first time the series had been aired since the late 1970s. The same episodes have been screened again, albeit in random order, from 2008 as part of the channel's Aussie Gold block hosted by Frank Woodley.