This page is solely devoted to my best mate Geoffro as he doesn’t have a site of his own ... and I think he should.

Before we go any further, I think it’s vital we address the most important question of all…

 

Who is The Geoffro anyway?

 

Geoffro was a well known fan personality from mainstream Australian science fiction fandom who was active from the late 1980s to early 2000s. Aside from his huge range of accomplishments within fandom organisational circles, Geoffro was always respected for his enormous, highly acclaimed, sci-fi/media collection of reference books, videos/DVDs and toys.

Within Australian media fandom itself, Geoffro was invaluable in promoting goodwill and friendship throughout the various circles of the community for well over a decade. Furthemore, Geoffro was regarded as being "the guy to talk to, when you just want someone to talk to" because Geoffro was never short in making new friends and sci-fi contacts.

Aside from his vast collections, Geoffro was also a copious writer of articles and reviews for many club newsletters and fanzines, in fact he even won second prize in an artshow too with the following entry Vampiricon Stickmen.

Geoffro has since retired from the mainstream science fiction community to live a happy, contented life with his wife and son in Western Victoria.

 

Geoffro was active in the Australian Science Fiction Media Community for many years. Below is a summary of his achievements

Organisational positions for clubs and conventions (in no particular order):

  • President of the DWCV (Dr Who club) twice - at different times
  • Vice President of the DWCV
  • President of the Neutral Zone Star Trek club (WA)
  • Social Co-ordinator of West Lodge (WA Doctor Who club)
  • Co-founder of Oscillation Overthruster magazine
  • President of Fanderson (Gerry Anderson fan club)
  • Founder of the Team Banzai fan club of Australia, and newsletter editor
  • Co-coordinator of the Blakes 7 club Victorian chapter
  • Fan Co-coordinator of the FEIPP (Free Entertainment in Public Places) Dr Who public event
  • Treasurer of Austrek (Star Trek club)
  • Organiser of the “Who’s 30” banquet and Collectors Fair
  • Co-convenor of Zencon II convention and Video Programmer
  • Video Programmer (and fearless monster fighter) of Trekcon IV convention
  • Day/Night Manager of Force III Star Wars convention
  • FGoH (Fan Guest of Honour) at Vampiricon
  • Auctioneer at HongCon
  • Organisational team member for Con 9 From Outer Space

But it doesn’t end there, Geoffro has also been a successful costumer with the following unique and interesting outfits:

  • Captain Wocka (ahhhh it's a kinda ...“you had to be there” costume)
  • Vincent from Beauty and the Beast - see below
  • A 6ft Mars Bar
  • A green spotted Mattress (where he got the award for the best lay in town)
  • Jean-Luc Picnic (aka the Star Trek: Next Generation Hot Pink uniform)
  • The pirate ship Stingray (a duet with yours truly)
  • Gigantor the Space Age Robot
  • A Mummy (the Egyptian kind) - see below
  • The Grim Reaper in the “I’ll love you to death” duet - see below
  • Chewbacca the Wookiee - see below
  • Darth Vader (which Geoffro wore as part of an official Fox/Columbia promotion in WA) - see below
As an onstage performer, Geoffro has appeared in the following stage acts:
  • Elvis Presley in a “Are you Lonesome Tonight” duet - see below
  • The Mad Doctor in “The Monster Mash” duet - see below
  • Co-author and performer of the “13 days of Halloween” jingle duet
  • Part of the "I Wish I was a Spaceman" live group musical act - Geoffro even got to perform a solo verse
Geoffro has also been responsible for creating the following video compilations for various banquets and conventions:
  • Special Jim Henson Memorial Tribute
  • Star Wars The Musical
  • The Empire Strikes Back The Musical
  • Return of the Jedi The Musicial
  • Tribute to Blake’s 7

Geoffro is also a successful fan film maker too, with the following “cinematic” classics lodged firmly under his belt:

  • Ghostbastards
  • Shakespeare Wars (AKA Shakespheare Wars depending on which video cover you got)
  • Sock Wars
  • The Day Off (a co-creation with Anthony Marks)
  • Pee Wee Monster

 


Geoffro Pics - get 'em while they're hot!

 

Geoffro and Lavinia in the very early days, who would've guessed where things would end up especially as they weren't a couple at this point Many years later at a friend's wedding looking very happy indeed, but believe it or not they still weren't a couple Finally at last. Yep, Geoffro and Lavinia at their OWN wedding
     
In this fandom lifetime, Geoffro was able to meet some of his heroes, one of them was JMS, creator of the TV show Babylon 5 Another was Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld series And Geoffro even got to meet Marvin the Paranoid Android (unfortunately not pictured is when Geoffro met Gerry Anderson which was probably the single biggest highlight of his fandom life)
     
It's the end of the 80s and Geoffro was a master of style and charm as highlighted by the Zorro type moustache Then a few years later the moustache was gone But it all began years earlier when Geoffro had the full ensemble, boofy hair, moustache and beard, but hey he looks cool no matter what
     
Geoffro and Dags spent many years hamming it up for the camera, this is just one such occasion at an Austrek Christmas party Yep and here we are at it again, this time at the Star Trek 25th Anniversary Banquet. It just doesn't end does it. In fact I was always envious of that Count Yorga shirt, but if anyone was to wear it then it had to be Geoffro
     
Our friendship was formed in 1988 when we were on the Zencon II convention committee and we've remained best mates ever since A rare photo indeed. Four fanboys together in the same place at the same time. From L to R - Russell Devlin, Shane Mengaziol, Geoffro and Dags The Geoffro doing what he does best, looking cool
     

   
In March 2012, The Geoffro opted to lose the locks for charity - yep "shave for a cure". Not only did The Geoffro wear his new cueball look proudly, but he raised over $600 which was heaps more than he had expected.    

 


Geoffro quirks and amusing tidbits

The Geoffro once went through a faze of changing his answering machine message every day (which meant that I had to ring up every day to hear the latest instalment). His shortest ever was the following: “They say life is too short, and so is this message.” <beep>

Geoffro once lived in a garage! The garage area located in the backyard of a friend’s house was so large that a wall had been put up to separate the car space from the “living” area. As it turned out, it was the largest bedroom Geoffro ever had and he admitted that being able to get dressed and walk to the car in the next room was definitely a bonus.

When the Geoffro used to live in the bungalow out the back of his folks place, he used to keep his socks in the kitchen drawers and collectables in his sock drawer (don’t ask me where his knives and forks were kept).

For a short time the Geoffro had an earring but he didn’t keep it for long.

The Geoffro types with only one finger, traditionally his other hand remains behind his back (go figure).

The Geoffro sticks his tongue out whenever his is concentrating on something.

Geoffro once had a busted arm, so doing what any friend would do, I wrote my comment on his cast ... underneath so he couldn’t read it. Sure enough he had to wait until the cast came off before my comments were revealed.

Apart from being a copious fanfilm producer, Geoffro has been the subject of one of the few fanfilm biopics "Geoff Tilley - the Man, the Myth, the Movies". The film traces Geoff from his Gobi desert origins through to the production of his masterpiece "Shakespeare Wars" and asks "is there anyway his film career can be stopped?"

When The Geoffro decided it was time to packup his bags and move to Western Australia, I opted to take him to the airport. So when do you think The Geoffro booked his ticket for what was a very sad occasion for me? 8am Christmas Day! Merry Christmas Dags.

Geoffro once attended a party where the guys dressed as girls and vice versa. To be in theme, Geoffro got all kitted up in a dress and full on makeup. T'was a sight believe me

Geoffro's collecting reputation made him a formidable figure in auctions for many years. My very first experience with The Geoffro occurred at a Star Wars triple screening at a cinema in 1987 where an auction was held between each film. I was sitting with some friends while The Geoffro was a few rows further down. A friend sitting next to me said in a concerned voice "whoa, that's Geoff Tilley! Don't ever go into a bidding contest with him as he always wins.".... and sure enough he did (when his hand went up, everyone elses came down).

Geoffro once took on a home handyman role and renovated the bathroom in his house. This work included (with some professional assistance) installing a new vanity, shower, bath, light fittings and lino floor. The result was so impressive that a formal opening ceremony, with ribbon cutting, was performed.

Geoffro was a Fan Guest of Honour at the Vampiricon convention in 1991. Wanting to be more interactive at the convention, he spent ages riding up and down in the hotel's only elevator with a tape recorder conducting interviews with the travelling folk and recording their thoughts for prosperity. The result was the launch of his "Vampiricon Tapes"

Geoffro has always been known as a lead foot when driving, alas this all came to a head in 2010 when he finally ran out of demerit points and lost his licence for 6 months.

Geoffro's birthday is September 11.

Geoffro once considered using hypnotherapy to break his chocolate addiction.

Geoffro proposed to Lavinia at Fast Eddy's 24hr restaurant.

Geoffro and Lavinia had their first child in August 2004 (Joshua Michael Tilley)


How could this web page ever be complete without some amusing anecdotes about my bestest bud! Read on and laugh at your leisure

 

Geoff's World, Party Time, Excellent!

Although Geoffro is renowned for making his own films, he's also famous for appearing in front of the camera too, as is evidenced by the most excellent Russell Devlin production Geoff's World. Inspired by Wayne's World. Geoffro and I spent a few hours in front of the camera hamming it up as part of a 30th anniversary Doctor Who documentary.

Despite our obvious enthusiasm for the production it was pretty clear that neither of us had any idea what we were doing as evidenced by the fact that we didn't know our lines, we couldn't sing for nuts (yes we did sing in this) and we had no idea what we were talking about. Indeed this was Geoffro's finest performance yet.

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When any Batman will do

One day in around 1995 Geoffro had a stall at a large Collector’s Fair at the Melbourne Exhibition Building. He had heaps of unique toys and collectables on sale including, believe this if you will, three loose Batman Jelly “babies” from 1989 (who on Earth would be willing to buy these is anyone’s guess). Despite Geoffro’s excellent skill at organisation, one thing he forgot to bring was something for lunch.

Sure enough as the hours rolled by, Geoffro started to eye off these 6 year old Batman Jelly babies thinking how they could quell his growing hunger. He looked and he looked and eventually he caved in. He picked up the first jelly Batman, looked it up and down and after some hesitation took a bite. It stretched and stretched until the piece finally gave way so Geoffro could commence munching on his prize “it’s a bit chewy” he said.

Finally as the rest of us looked on in shock (and revulsion), Geoffro finished the first jelly Batman and after giving it the thumbs up, decided to chow down on the other two.

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Colour my world

One day Geoffro decided to use a “do it yourself” hair colouring kit and promptly went off to the bathroom to turn his black locks into a nice shade of red. When he emerged his hair looked fine but something seemed wrong with his face. Upon questioning he conceded that he had some colour left over and decided that since “waste not want not” was the order of the day, so he coloured his eyebrows as well.

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Have Batman costume will travel

Geoffro and I decided to wear Batman costumes to the premiere screening of Batman in 1989. When I got to the cinema all kitted out in my cossie, I was shocked to find that Geoffro was minus his. It turns out that Geoffro had indeed made a Batman costume out of his favourite material (black plastic) but was too embarrassed to wear it. Shame, shame, shame.

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Have your cake and eat it too

One of the Concave conventions had a novelty that was completely unique amongst all other cons, a complete dessert only banquet – buffet style! Naturally we looked upon a buffet dessert banquet as being complete heaven and showed no mercy as we ate ourselves silly. Geoffro however, being a much bigger eater than I was, had a problem working out when to say “enough”. After he admitted that he was completely full, he proceeded off to the buffet table and returned with a large slice of cake. We all looked at Geoffro wondering how on Earth he was going to eat this piece and in fact he was wondering the same thing too.

The result? He got his fork and slowly scrapped minute crumbs off the side and ate those instead.

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And you thought Ed Wood was fast!

Feeling inspired by his fellow film maker friends who were creating their own dramatic short film masterpieces, the Geoffro decided to create a serious production of his own. So on one particular day when I was staying over at the Geoffro's abode, I found that he had written a synopsis and screenplay for a new film in the space of three hours. He finished the screenplay in the morning, we filmed it at lunchtime and by the early afternoon it was complete.

The end result was his 5 minute epic "Pee Wee Monster". Considering most short film productions can take on average over 6 months to complete, I think the Geoffro did pretty well to complete the bulk of his movie in less than 6 hours.

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Holy Crumbles Batman!

Geoffro was a Batman collector like myself in the early 90s and together we each bought a great looking chocolate Batman Returns Batmobile for our collections.

Unfortunately after many months passed the chocolate started to turn white and then one day Geoffro rang me up and said in admonishment "my Batmobile has just crumbled!" Not one to spend time lamenting on this disaster I asked him over the phone "what are you going to do with it?" and Geoffro replied "I've already started eating it .... ummm I think this was a wheel". That's our Geoffro, waste not want not.

The amusing PS to this story is that as soon as Geoffro told me his chocolate had crumbled I immediately put mine (which though white was still intact) in the fridge and it's now been there for over 20 years!

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An epic production in the making

Geoffro once worked as a security guard doing night shift work at a large supermarket. Considering this to be a great opportunity to utelise his creativity, The Geoffro came up with an idea for a new fan film called Sock Wars - yes a Star Wars parody using sock puppets. Knowing that socks couldn't act in front of a blank wall, The Geoffro went about constructing background plates using discarded materials from the supermarket.

When asked how he was progressing with Sock Wars, The Geoffro would respond with "I'm currently BUILDING the sets" which gave the impression he was assembling a production of mammoth proportions - especially as it took him a few months to finish this work. So imagine my surprise when filming day arrived and The Geoffro arrived with a couple of dozen flattened cardboard boxes with various bits of tape and coloured paper stuck all over them.

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It was really rad

Geoffro was a regular attendee at sci-fi conventions and everyone loved having him there to liven the place up. In 1993 someone who wasn't a keen Geoffro supporter (don't worry, selected breeding has kept their numbers to a minimum) was planning to run a sci-fi convention and even though Geoffro purchased a T-shirt supporting the event, it was clear that the convention organiser was not overly keen about Geoffro's impending attendance. Yet as fate would have it, The Geoffro got the last laugh as the convention was cancelled a couple of months before it was due to be held.

Not wanting to show any animosity to the event nor this particular organiser (OK maybe just a tiny bit), both Geoffro and myself attended the hotel venue on the weekend the convention was meant to occur with Geoffro wearing the convention's T-Shirt in support. We walked into the very quiet hotel foyer proclaiming "well we're here, where's the con?" and even took photos as a momento to the occasion.

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Murphy’s Law strikes back

I bought a very large framed Empire Strikes Back poster from someone in Queensland which was shipped down to a courier in Essendon. At the time I didn’t have a car so I asked Geoffro if he could help me pick it up. The plan was simple, arrive at the courier’s depot, pick up the picture, fold the back seats down in the Camira, lay the poster on top and drive home.

We picked up the poster without a snag and the time came to put the picture in the car. I asked Geoffro to drop the back seats and he just looked at me dumbfounded as he replied “the seats don’t fold down.” I couldn’t believe my ears “whatdaya mean they don’t fold down!” Not only could we not put the picture in the car, but it was now dark and we were stuck there in Essendon with a poster we couldn’t transport.

Never one to be outdone by logistical issues, the Geoffro suggested we unpack the poster from its cardboard confines to see how much smaller it would be. Fortunately for us there was no glass in the frame because in the end the only way we could transport it in the car was to lay it flat over our heads inside the car with us.

The result was that I drove the Camira home with the driver’s seat pushed as close to the wheel as possible and Geoffro was in the passenger’s seat hiding under the poster frame that was above him. Having no glass in the frame proved to be a life saver as we had to bend the frame somewhat to fit it in the doors. It must’ve made for a funny site seeing us drive down the Tullamarine Freeway like that – luckily I lived in Brunswick so it was a short trip.

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What’s in a name

Geoffro owned a red Holden Camira with gold alloy wheels which he was extremely proud of (he even enhanced it painting the windscreen wipers red and adding in some nice gold pin striping). To jazz up its look even further, I was able to get a couple of professionally made gold “Geoffro” name stickers to put on the panelling to show the world that this was indeed The Geoffro Mobile. We stuck on the stickers and boy did that car look flash!

Unfortunately the time came for Geoffro to move to WA and he chose to take the Camira with him. Once he got there, however, he decided to sell the Camira and had the name stickers taken off. Of course what happened next? Not only did he NOT sell the car, but he also brought it back with him to Victoria when he returned a few years later! So he could’ve left the stickers on after all!

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Wanted: One T-Shirt, must be REALLY pre-loved

Geoffro was notorious for putting anything and everything up for sale with the motto “someone will want it”. He had a stall at a collector’s fair and amongst the collectables were a number of his science fiction T-Shirts up for sale. Upon closer inspection of the merchandise I discovered that the shirts still contained official Geoffro sweat stains under the arm pits. My response was “dude, ya coulda washed ‘em first!”

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Score one for The Dags

Before Geoffro headed off to WA, he made a choice to sell off some of his collectables for a bit of extra cash. Needless to say, the Batman stuff was directly earmarked for me. One of the items on offer was a 60s tin Batmobile in the box (it’s the type that’s designed to run around the room and when it hits a wall or something, changes direction and continues on). After a bit of "umm-ing" and "ahhh-ing" Geoffro offered it to me for around $40 which I happily accepted. Can you imagine his surprise when he later discovered that it was worth over $400. A "Doh!" moment if ever there was one.

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Gotta love ya friends

I once held a costume party with the theme “come as your alter ego”. Geoffro turned up all in black, with a cape and some rings on his fingers… yep sure enough, he came dressed as me.

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Gimme paw! Ow wow wow wow!

Geoffro and I used to love “givin’ paw” as inspired from the Star Wars spoof film Spaceballs. On one occasion Geoffro and I, along with my girlfriend at the time, were driving in two different cars to Ballarat.

On a very long, quiet straight stretch of Western Highway, Geoffro and I decided to drive side by side in each of the two lanes. Since he was on the left side and I was on the right, his driver’s window was right next to my passenger’s window. Suddenly an inexplicable urge fell on us all and Geoffro and my girlfriend decided to give each other paw between the two moving cars. All would’ve finished well if it wasn’t for the fact that we passed a hidden police car who proceeded to pull us both over and book us for having “limbs extending from the vehicle”.

So what do ya do when you’ve been nabbed over by police? Take photos! The irony of this story is that Geoffro got a ticket, my girlfriend got a ticket but I got off as I didn’t do anything wrong.

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Ice cream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream

For a time Geoffro used to attend weekly Wednesday dinners with friends in Ballarat. Each week someone different would host the dinner at their home venue and the resulting guests would be required to bring along something extra for the occasion (drink, salad, nibbles, etc). On this particular occasion the Geoffro was to supply dessert, for which he bought a 4 litre tub of ice cream the weekend prior. Knowing full well that the dinner guests wouldn’t polish off 4 litres worth of the creamy goodness, the Geoffro decided to chow down on the excess with the intention of leaving enough for the dinner guests.

Unfortunately with each bowl of ice cream consumed, the Geoffro found that he was getting closer and closer to the threshold of what he thought “would be sufficient” for the dinner guests. Suddenly on the day before the dinner, the Geoffro hit a crucial point: One more bowl of ice cream and there wouldn’t be enough for the dinner guests…. What to do? Well the Geoffro did everyone proud and decided to munch down on remaining ice cream thus accepting there wouldn’t be enough for the dinner party – but that was OK ‘cause he would just pick up a new tub.

Indeed the Geoffro had polished off a 4 litre tub of ice cream within a few days, but as promised delivered a brand new 4 litre tub to the dinner the following evening. The amusing part of this tale is that despite Geoffro’s best intentions, no one at the dinner party ate any ice cream anyway!

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“Anything, just play it loud OK”

One time a large group of us went camping and had setup our tents and things for the sleepover in the Summer’s night air. Geoffro being the early riser that he was once said to me that he "couldn’t wake up properly until he had blasted a bit of Motley Crue’s 'Kickstart My Heart' into his ears". So after getting out of his sleeping bag at around 8am on very quiet and peaceful country morning, and desperately needing a blast of the Crue to wake up, the Geoffro sealed himself in his car thinking confidently that it was soundproof and thus proceeded to blast away with his “breakfast”.

As you can imagine, the reactions of everyone being woken up like this was anything but positive.

By the time I got up two hours later and heard what happened, the Geoffro was no where to be seen. Apparently he had gone for a looooooong run in an attempt to avoid people’s wrath.

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The demands of a movie star

Geoffro was once cast in a film being made by our old buddy Russell. The film was called 7th Victim and Geoffro got the supporting role of Ed Morrow. Now this was a plumb role for the Geoffro to have, however, one of his tasks was to drive his car whilst reciting some dialogue and unfortunately The Geoffro struggled to remember his lines whilst cruising around the suburb.

In one instance when he was actually getting his lines right, he turned a corner for no apparent reason and ended up in a dead end street. When we all asked after a potentially great take was ruined "why did you turn up here?" his response was "it's hard to talk and drive at the same time!"

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Doin' the Full Geoffro

Geoffro and Lavinia were on a cruise trip sailing the seven seas and having a great ol' time. Unfortunately the beautiful porthole view from their room did not feature the windswept sea, the ocean life nor the bright blue sky, instead it pointed directly at a lifeboat parked outside. On this particular day The Geoffro got out of the shower looking mighty fine wearing nothing but his birthday suit, only then did he discover that a crew member was cleaning said lifeboat right next to the window. No doubt that crewman copped a decent eyeful of the The Geoffro lookin' his best.

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“We all fall down, like Toy Soldiers”

Geoffro who is legendary at finding unique and interesting things at garage sales and store clearances was in a discount book store one day and came across a hard back copy of Toy Soldiers. Normally most people wouldn’t care about this, but Geoffro concluded that since Toy Soldiers was a film, and that Wil Wheaton appeared in that film, and since Wil Wheaton also appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation, that Geoffro had to buy it due to this rather thin sci-fi link

A bizarre PS to this story is that this particular book had been checked out of some obscure library in the USA and never checked back in – ergo it had either been lost or stolen. In any case I still make reference to this somewhat tenuous excuse for a book purchase to Geoffro whenever the opportunity arises.

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Forget your thirst, image is everything

After having thick black hair and a beard for most of his life, the Geoffro decided one day that a change was in order. He chopped all the hair off, had it coloured and shaved the beard off as well. When he turned up to a party that night people were openly stunned at the sudden transformation. In fact when he walked through the door the vocal reaction of people was as if something was extremely wrong. As it turned out, the transformation worked in the Geoffro’s favour.

When you look at the pics you'd swear the one on the right was taken when Geoffro was younger ... nup.

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Waste not, want not

The Geoffro has been responsible for writing numerous articles for club newsletters and fanzines. In the pre PC days, he used to write all of his material on a typewriter (as did we all). However, the Geoffro was never one to bother with borders or headings, no, no, no, instead The Geoffro would start from the absolute top line of the paper and write from the extreme left side of the page to the extreme right. In Geoffro’s view, why bother with wasted blank space around the page!

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The Clothes Maketh the Geoffro

Lavinia (who many years later become Geoffro's wife) once had a birthday dinner at the Pancake Parlour. I arrived late while everyone was having the meal and was taken aback by how well dressed The Geoffro was: a nice collared shirt, with a nice tie topped off with a black leather jacket. He looked ultra spiffo - and I told him so too! However, Imagine my surprise we we got up to leave at the end of the night and to compliment his wonderful attire, Geoffro had also worn these old daggy faded blue leather jeans and these ugly brown cowboy boots. Yech!

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Pretty in pink

One time a whole bunch of us went camping at a private rural property in Ballarat for a weekend of fun filled paint ball skirmishing (though in this case it was with user friendly water pistols instead). While the order of the day was army greens and camouflage apparel, The Geoffro decided to "blend in with the natural surroundings" by wearing bright pink shorts. Yes indeedy, he could be seen for miles!

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"Do you Lavinia take this Geoffro..."

On the day of his wedding, most people would've thought that the Geoffro would've either been nervous, suffering anxiety attacks or at the very least be overwhelmed by the marital events still to occur. Nup not the Geoffro. While it was bedlem at the ladies house getting themselves ready for the big moment only a few hours hence, The Geoffro was at another friend's house pushing an ironing board and a dustbuster across the carpet with a video camera ... yep he was busy filming the introduction sequence to Sock Wars.

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Party, party, party!

We were at a party one night and everyone was having a great time, however, without warning The Geoffro said that he had to leave early to tape an ABBA special that was on Rage that night. None of us wanted Geoffro to go so a conspiracy ensured where his car keys were swiped and hidden, trapping him there. Because we are such nice people, eventually we relented and gave Geoffro his keys back so he was able to leave - much to our sadness.

In the end though, the joke was on Geoffro as we found out from him the next day that the ABBA special wasn't on that night ... so he left a great party for nothing!

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Going once, going twice, sold!

In 1992 Geoffro got the opportunity to be the auctioneer at the Hongcon convention in Adelaide. With a mission in mind to get the best price for the goods on offer, Geoffro had a tendancy of calling out bids for himself and then trying to get a person in the audience to push the price up by a dollar just so he could outbid them further. The trouble was that in some instances he would call out a bid, encourage people into putting the next bid in and then forget who made the last offer. When this occured Geoffro's natural response was to put in another bid to keep the auction flow going, except he didn't realise that he was actually bidding against himself (much to the audiences amusement).

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Lucky they call it art

During the making of Ghostbastards, The Geoffro wanted to include a sequence from Miami Vice between Tubbs and Crocket where he would play Crocket. The trouble was that Crocket was a black guy. So what do The Geoffro do when he realised there was a distinct shortage of black face paint? Use Vegemite instead!

This sequence lead to an outake of Tubbs scraping some Vegemite of his partner's face and wiping it on his bread.

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DIY, the Geoffro way

Inside Geoffro's house is "The G Room", where all of Geoffro's books, videos, DVDs, toys and records are kept. It's a fantastic room filled with heaps of bookcases which takes hours to go through. But what happens when you need another bookcase the same size as what's there and they are suddenly no longer available? Easy, make your own!

Now on a mission to solve this problem, The Geoffro went out and bought all of the required wood from Bunnings, had them cut it all to size and then got home and proceeded to screw it all together.

Everything would've turned out just dandy except for one leeeeeettle problem. The Geoffro made an error in his measurements and found that his bookcase, though sturdily constructed, was 4cm short at one end which meant that it didn't square up with the existing pre bought bookcase which it was to sit back-to-back with. Doh!

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Geoffro's bucks night

Traditionally a man's bucks night is meant to be a somewhat lewd and adult rated affair, so it's not surprising that Geoffro's would be anything but traditional.

So what do you think The Geoffro go up to? Strippers? "R" rated videos? Drinking games? Nope, none of these. Instead The Geoffro got all us guys to spend hours recording character voices for his Sock Wars hand puppets (I had a good time at least)!

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The skies the limit (thanks to Martin Dunne for this)

Geoffro once visited Adelaide where he and Martin went to visit the somewhat second rate water slide amusement park Magic Mountain (Geoffro said he wanted to get a business card from the place as there was a brothel in Melbourne of the same name - dunno how he knew that). One of the amusements available were the sky cycles which were pedal powered vehicles which hung from a track and performed a circuit over the entire complex.

Ascending to the sky cycle platform, Geoffro and Martin found there was no attendant to take their money, so after a brief wait they commandeered a tandem sky cycle of their own accord and promptly took off. They peddled over the miniature golf, over the bumper boats, over the arcade games, over everything having a wail of a time. However, when they returned to the starting platform they quickly realised the conundrum they were now in. Without an attendant present there was no one to shunt the other sky cycles out of the way so Geoffro and Martin could "dock". The result is that our heroes found themselves trapped on a tandem arcade ride up in the sky!

Since Martin had led poor Geoffro into this predicament, he took the initiative in getting them back out of it. He climbed out of the sky cycle cage and through the ones in front until he reached the platform. Geoffro followed suit, and soon they were both free! So was the ride.

To finish the gag off, Martin switched on the PA and declared to all and sundry "It's Stalin's birthday! And to celebrate, Magic Mountain is giving one hundred percent off the sky cycle rides!" which in turn prompted the quick appearance of the long lost attendant. The downside to this story is that the place didn't have the elusive business cards that Geoffro was seeking.

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It's Arnie Geoffro

Geoffro had this beefcake T-Shirt that when worn is meant to emulate a real man's torso, except with rippling abs, cut obliques and bulging pecs. The Geoffro said that he would never wear this shirt until he was in good enough shape for the shirt to emulate his physique underneath. So whilst in WA, The Geoffro setup his home gym and ploughed his way through all the fitness and muscle building videos he could get his hands on. The end result is that The Geoffro did in fact get his six pack and did in fact look damn fine ...... but in his words just not fine enough to wear that shirt. The end result is that Geoffro came back to Victoria, got to enjoy the finer things in life, and never got around to putting that T-Shirt on even once.

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Don't call me dude!

Throughout their lives, people will have a tendancy to buy all sorts of novelites and nick nacks that they hang onto and then discard later in life - especially if the item is of no sentimental use. The Geoffro has one such item that he picked up at a garage sale that he's lugged around for years and years (he even took it to WA .... and brought it back!). It's called "The Dude" and aside from taking up space in his home, it offers absolutely no intrinsic value whatsoever. The Dude is a wooden image of a .... dude pointing somewhere and that's about it.

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Frankly Scarlett, I don't give a damn!

As an eternal eBay scourer, the Geoffro was surprised to discover a box set of the new Captain Scarlett Animated TV series that someone in the US was selling (The Geoffro knew it was the new series by the impressive box cover artwork). Looking at the price he was amazed to see that it was going for a song and that no one was bidding on it. So Geoffro quickly snapped it up right there and then and felt rapt that not only did he get a box set of the super cool new series, but he paid a pitance for it in comparison to buying it locally.

So imagine Geoffro's surprise when his long awaited package arrived from the US only to discover that he had just purchased the original Captain Scarlett series from the 1970s of which he has long since owned. Yep it was the new box artwork that lead him astray.

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Moving house ... The Geoffro way

A situation arose at one point for The Geoffro and Lavinia to move house to a new abode less than a kilometre away. Unfortunately due to the immense amount of videos, books and collectables they each own, the required number of boxes couldn't be located to pack everything up. But this didn't deter The Geoffro 'cause he had a solution to this tricky dilemma and thus the followng process was created ..."Moving house The Geoffro way".

This plan requires only a handful of boxes on the actual day of moving:

  • Pack items at the old location with available boxes (team 1)
  • Send boxes to the new location (team 2)
  • Unpack the boxes at the new location (team 3)
  • Send the boxes back to the starting point for refilling (team 1).
  • Keep going until all items are moved from the old location to the new one (teams 1, 2 and 3)

Sounds good in theory doesn't it? The result was that after 7 hours of just moving furniture alone, the number of teams assisting in The Geoffro's house move dwindled quite significantly as it was clear there was no end in site. Subsequently after 9+ hours of shifting, only The Geoffro remained to move stuff. But The Geoffro remained upbeat about it all insisting that everything would be shifted within a 24 hour period (and it was ... sometime in the 23rd hour).

The irony of this story is that 5 hours into the move, The Geoffro and Lavinia's new neighbours commenced moving in right next door, except in their case they used professional removalists. The result is that they were relocated into their home within an hour of the truck arriving which prompted Lavinia to cry out in astonishment "next time I want to move house like that!"

And finally....

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There is a touch of Geoffro in all of us... (thanks to Russell Devlin for this)

As is well known, Geoffro is a major media sci-fi fan but one of his dearest & most esoteric loves is the 1971 US/Australia suspense anthology series "Evil Touch", hosted by screen legend Anthony Quayle. He actually got into active fandom through seeing Russell Devlin, Andrew Kutzer, Richard Freeland & others wearing Evil Touch badges at a party at Lucy Zinkiewicz's place, which led him into serious Doctor Who club involvement and from there the rest of fandom.

In the days before video, he soundtracked episodes and wrote detailed story synopses in tiny handwriting (which he has since lost). He once read Andrew and I an Evil Touch fan story which we cracked up about and thought was brilliantly funny, until he looked at us nonplussed and said "but I meant it at a serious story."

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If you have any funny, amusing or interesting stories you want to share about The Geoffro, or if you have any pics of him that are suitable for this site, be sure to send them to me at darren@maxwell.net

 

The Geoffro Page was launched on 27/2/04


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