The Snooze Slumber Party for Telethon has just wrapped up with a very early slice of celebratory cake in bed — and the obligatory presentation of a giant cheque.
Overnight broadcast favourites Famous Sharron and Ben O’Shea each brought out a cake to celebrate five years of the skit-filled slumber party, now a staple of Telethon’s overnight programming.
Lying on the bed with Chad Rankin from Snooze, O’Shea shared that he had baked his cake himself.
And his offering had all the hallmarks of a dad’s homemade treat, an odd-shaped roundish homebaked beauty loosely covered in chocolate icing and an assortment of lollies.
Famous Sharron then shared that she too had organised a cake for the moment — one-upping her bedmate with a true cake-decorator’s delight, her’s a perfectly finished, bed-shaped treat, complete with delicate flowers against its fluffy pillows (to represent her).
The slumber party carries the Channel 7 broadcast coverage through the wee hours from a bed set inside RAC Arena and is led by the duo of O’Shea — the host of Perth news podcast Newsworthy by day — and well known local comedian Famous Sharron.
Highlights of their party-themed five hours on the bed included a lip sync of KPop Demon Hunters song Golden and the emergence of Flat Tinney — a life-sized cardboard cutout replacement of the bed’s other regular, Channel 7 Sunrise Perth presenter Matt Tinney.
O’Shea’s magic was on hand to make a cupcake disappear into his magician’s hat, only to have Famous Sharron snatch the treat and make it vanish in one mouthful. Another “magic trick” involved making the real Tinney appear halfway through the slumber party.
Telethon sleepout diehards had their chance to be specially involved in the broadcast’s early-morning pyjama parade before freestyle rapper Stian McShane used audience ideas to create a unique improvised track just for Telethon.
Snooze’s contribution to Telethon this year was $50,000 and when the slumber party ended just before 7am, WA’s giving had surpassed $18 million.