Australian Jackson TV skit branded racist worldwide

Harry Connick Jr (pictured), one of the guest judges on the show, was said to be infuriated by the skit. Photo / Getty Images

CANBERRA- For almost three decades Australia put its weekend partying on hold for an hour to watch a variety show called Hey Hey It's Saturday and its agonising - but usually hilarious - bad taste talent quest called Red Faces.

The nation was shocked when the show was axed in 1999, and this year demanded a comeback in an internet petition joined by thousands of fans.

But now it is Hey Hey It's Saturday's producers and the Nine Network whose faces are red.

The second of a two-part reunion broadcast on Wednesday night has been hammered internationally for an act in which five white men with faces painted black, and an Indian masked in white paint, parodied the late singer Michael Jackson.

The group calling itself the Jackson Jive had appeared on the original show 20 years ago, when its members were all studying medicine.

Its "Michael Jackson", Dr Anand Deva, is now a prominent - and remorseful - Sydney plastic surgeon, and the other members are specialists across a range of disciplines.

Among the panelists judging their skit was American singer Harry Connick jnr, who grew up playing with black musicians in New Orleans and who was infuriated by the group.

At first he simply gave them a zero score. But backstage Connick reportedly fumed at host Daryl Somers, whose company produced the show and who was hoping that the 2.6 million audience attracted by the first reunion show last week would convince Nine to put it back on air.

At the end of the show a shaken Somers brought Connick back on air for an apology.

"I deeply apologise on behalf of all of us, because I know that to your countrymen that's an insult, to have a black-face routine like that on the show. So I do apologise to you."

Connick said if he had known of the Jackson Jive skit in advance, he would not have done the show.

"I just want to say on behalf of my country, I know it was done in humour, but we have spent so much time trying not to make black people look like buffoons, that when we see something like that we really take it to heart," he said.

The live-to-air skit and the exchange between Connick and Somers was picked up by major news organisations and bloggers, most of whom agreed the act was racist.

New York Magazine's Vulture columnist described it as "awful" and ChicagoNow as "inconceivably ignorant". and Britain's Guardian sneered at Somers' approval for the Jackson Jive's comeback after 20 years - "you know, in the olden times of 1989, when blacking up was totally acceptable".

Frontman Deva said the group was a multicultural collection of Jackson fans, and that the act was not intended to be racist.