John Clarke - the man who created comic character Fred Dagg - has died at the age of 68.
STEVE KILGALLON, GLENN MCCONNELL, KYLIE KLEIN-NIXON AND SHAUN BAMBER
Last updated 16:58, April 10 2017
One of New Zealand and Australia's most well-known satirists, John Clarke - the man who created comic character Fred Dagg - has died at the age of 68.
Dagg was hailed as the father of modern Kiwi comedy after it was confirmed that he had died on Sunday of natural causes while hiking in the Grampians National Park in Victoria.
Clarke was best known for creating the laconic farmer Fred Dagg, but also enjoyed success as an author, actor, editor and screenwriter.
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John Clarke - a timeline
1948 - born, Palmerston North
1972 - gets break through role in The Adventures of Barry McKenzie
1973 - returns to New Zealand, in Buck House, New Zealand's first sitcom
1974 - first appearance as Fred Dagg, in Country Calendar
1975 - releases first singles as Fred Dagg including We Don't Know How Lucky We Are, followed by first album, Fred Dagg's Greatest Hits
1976 - releases Gumboots and album Fred Dagg Live
1977 - makes sketch film Dagg Day Afternoon with Geoff Murphy
1977 - moves to Melbourne, Australia, appears as Dagg on Australian radio
1979 - final album, The Fred Dagg Tapes, released
1982 - nominated for Australian Film Institute award for writing work on film Lonely Hearts
1984 - performs as Fred Dagg on Australian satire show The Gillies Report, introducing world to fictional sport of "farnarkeling"
1985 - co-creates comedy series The Fast Lane
1986 - returns to New Zealand to voice Wal Footrot in Footrot Flats film
1988 - apperars alongside Temuera Morrison in Geoff Murphy's Never Say Die
1989 - starts doing satirical interviews with Bryan Dawe on A Current Affair
1990 - stars with Bryan Brown, Russell Crowe and George Takei in POW film Blood Oath (also known as Prisoners of the Sun), also stars in black comedy Death in Brunswick with Sam Neill
1996 - publishes writing collection A Dagg At My Table
1998 - writes and acts in mockumentary series The Games
2002 - appears as villain in film Crackerjack, publishes novel The Tournament about a tennis competition starring giants of 20th-century literature and thinking
2004 - works with Sam Neill on films Stiff and The Brush-off, based on Shane Maloney's "Murray Whelan" book series
2006 - works on Bro Town with the Naked Samoans comedy group
2008 - inducted into Logies Hall of Fame
2013 - mock interviews with Bryan Dawe become own show, Clarke and Dawe
2017 - dies while hiking in the Grampians National Park in Victoria, aged 68
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