Tony Armstrong’s new show is all about ordinary objects and ordinary people... with extraordinary stories
He’s a mainstay of Aussie television; the loveable larrikin we catch up with on our screens every morning — easy on the eye, quick with a quip, handy with a sporting fact or two.
Since becoming one of the ABC’s most popular figures through his role presenting sport on its breakfast news program, former AFL player Tony Armstrong also started popping up hosting other shows, including A Dog’s World.
He’s won two Logies; the Graham Kennedy Award (for most popular new talent) in 2022 and the Bert Newton Award (for most popular presenter) the following year.
It’s strange, then, when you take a moment and realise that Armstrong, now about to host a new documentary series, Tony’s Extra-Ordinary Things, has actually only been a TV star for . . . wait for it . . . three short years.
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Improbable, right?
“I think people forget how new I am to it all,” says the 34-year-old western Sydney-raised Gamilaroi presenter, who is talking with STM over the phone from his home in Melbourne.
Tony Armstrong's Extra-Ordinary Things is coming to ABC. Credit: Supplied/ABC
Armstrong came to a career in television through the back door, thanks in part to his footballing background (he played 35 games in six years for the Adelaide Crows, Sydney Swans and Collingwood Magpies).
After being delisted by Collingwood in 2015, he branched out, providing commentary for the AFL’s Indigenous round broadcast and then on Triple M. He was also a panellist on the AFL TV show Colour of your Jumper, which led to a small stint presenting NITV’s Yokayi Footy.
This, in turn, led to him getting snapped up by the ABC, where he worked as a producer for sports news, first for radio, and later for television.
The loveable larrikin with the megawatt smile got his big break when the network took a punt and dropped him into on-air duties for the News Breakfast program.
Now, Armstrong jokes, they can’t get rid of him.
Tony Armstrong will host Tony Armstrong’s Extra-Ordinary Things on the ABC. Credit: DIEGO LORENZO JOSE/Courtesy of the ABC
“I’m parasitic,” he laughs. “No, look, I hope people don’t perceive me as being a parasite, but it’s still a bit like, ‘What is happening?’ How did I get here?’
“I am obviously so proud. But everyone works hard — I don’t consider myself unique in that regard.
“I guess a lot of it has been ‘right place, right time’.”
Serendipity may have played a role, but there’s no doubting Armstrong’s work ethic and talent. Both are on full display in his latest project, which sees him travelling the length and breadth of the country. He’s chatting to Aussies with seemingly everyday items in their possession; yet the objects “hold extraordinary stories of Australia’s most defining moments”.
Armstrong, with his characteristically formidable warmth and charisma, travels around on a hilarious folding bicycle expertly extracting these yarns — and each of the people he meets has quite the tale to tell.
Tony Armstrong's Extra-Ordinary Things is coming to ABC Credit: Supplied
There’s the family who have been hanging on to a metal pin, given to someone’s grandfather who worked on the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The story behind that nondescript object involves someone leaping from the iconic monument to save a drowning mate.
Then there’s the chat in the first episode, where Armstrong speaks to a woman who shows him the novelty cheque she received for winning a surfing contest — but it actually speaks of a bigger story, about discrimination in women’s sport.
He heads west, too, to meet the migrant family who created Perth’s famous ‘conti roll’ — a culinary delicacy we’re thrilled the rest of the country will soon learn all about.
“That’s an exact reflection of what this show is about, actually,” Armstrong explains.
“Sure, the conti roll is just a sanga, but it tells a story about migration, resilience, that kind of thing.
“Everyone has got something like that, which is also something I definitely learnt after spending the better part of two months on the road. Everyone has a story and has got their ‘extra-ordinary’ thing, or something that tells an amazing yarn.”
While over in Western Australia Armstrong met with others, too, including Noongar/Wongi rapper, Flewnt, and his 11-year-old son, Inkabee. The boy, following in his dad’s musical footsteps, reveals his notebook is his treasured object, where he writes his own raps.
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“(Inkabee) is incredible — I think he’s 12 now. Young as,” Armstrong explains. “He is MCing his own shows, and performing, and he has some amazing singles.
Armstrong with Flewnt and his son Inkabee. Credit: Supplied/ABC
“But one of the most beautiful things I got out of chatting to him and his old man was that it was such a beautiful example of black fatherhood.”
Armstrong was raised by his non-Indigenous mother — his father was not around when he was growing up — and he’s been thinking about his own beginnings, and the concept of identity.
“(Talking with them) made me really emotional, because it is the number one negative trope when you talk about our family structure,” he says.
“It’s like, ‘Oh, black dads are absent’. Well, that wasn’t the case here — (Flewnt) was empowering, cameras or not, and I was like, ‘Take some notes for if you ever have kids, because these guys have got it sorted’.”
All these stories — and more — are the basis for this fantastic series, but also form the backbone for an accompanying exhibition at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, designed to tell “the little-known history of our country”.
The exhibition, which launches on June 21, explores the concept that a nation’s identity can be knitted together through the stories of everyday objects.
Armstrong meets Tom in Perth and learns how to make the famous conti roll. Credit: Supplied/ABC
A continental roll behind glass in an exhibition?
Sure! Why not?
“I can’t tell you how wigged out eight-year-old me — even 16-year-old me — would have been (to be part of an exhibition at the prestigious institution),” Armstrong says incredulously.
“Like, I have no business being in that building. Far out. Life is a funny old thing.”
It sure is. And Armstrong knows, perhaps better than most, that it has the ability to take you in unexpected directions.
He says he never imagined he’d be where he is today, even three years prior, when first venturing into television.
So it begs the question: what would he be doing?
“Neuroscience!” he laughs.
“Actually, to be honest, I don’t know,” he says, suddenly at a loss for words.
“I am useless at most things — and I’m not even joking.”
But surely, after all the accolades, attention and fandom over the past three years, he must have an inkling that he is, at least, good at the whole TV caper?
“Well, I fell into TV, and once I started doing it I loved it. I think I had passion and aptitude,” he finally admits.
“And when those things combine, regardless of where you end up, you’re going to be happy.”