HAPPINESS NETWORK: the TV program bringing joy to sick children and their families

A lifeline to sick kids and their parents, Juiced TV is a children’s entertainment network that’s made especially for Queensland hospitals, where the patients are the stars. Genevieve Gannon meets the young presenters and the inspiring founder who makes dreams come true.

Juiced TV is a small but deeply loved television network that operates in Queensland hospitals, bringing happiness and relief to thousands of sick kids. With its fun tone and patient-focused segments, the joy it sprinkles around the sterile hospital corridors feels almost magical. But, as its creator explains, Juiced TV may never have existed, had it not been for one lucky twist of fate.

The story begins in 2005 at Channel Ten’s Brisbane studios, where 18-yearold communications student Pip Forbes – then Pip Russell – arrived clutching her resume.

The broadcaster had advertised for a junior publicist, and the optimistic Pip had decided to apply, even though she hadn’t finished university yet. That have-a-go attitude has informed her whole life, including her decision as a teenager to volunteer to do ‘bedside play’ at the Queensland Children’s Hospital.

“That’s where you would take a trolley of toys around to the kids,” Pip tells The Weekly. “I just wanted to give back to the community in that way, and to those kids who didn’t have choice or control over what was happening to them.”

Pip didn’t get the publicist job, but she’d made an impression at Channel Ten. As luck would have it, they were auditioning hosts for their new children’s show,

Toasted TV, when she went in for her interview and one of the producers had an inkling Pip would be good on camera. “It was a fluke,” Pip says, but the job was hers.

She was an instant hit with the kids. With her friendly grin and natural exuberance, Pip is purpose-built for children’s television. The show’s budget was small, however, so in addition to starring on camera, Pip worked behind the scenes, developing her skills in production. “We didn’t just present the show – we wrote segments, researched and did part of the post-production work,” she says.

It was rewarding and challenging work, but there was one problem. “That full-time role coincided with the volunteer hours, so I wasn’t able to continue that role,” she says.

Pip was very attached to the hospital and the children she’d met, so she asked if she could organise special events. “We did Halloween, Easter, spring and Christmas. Literally any excuse for a party!” she says.

As her career at Channel Ten flourished, Pip used her new profile to attract special guests to hospital events. After a few years, she started presenting for Totally Wild, but kept up her sporadic volunteer work. As much as she loved meeting and interviewing interesting people, the kids were what really got her out of bed each morning. She took a few months off to travel to Africa, where she volunteered in remote villages.

When Pip got home, she met a 12-year-old girl named Keely, who was in the late stages of leukaemia. “She had so much spunk,” Pip says. “I did see a little bit of me in her. Her family was really awesome and we just formed this great connection.”

Keely confided in Pip her two most cherished desires: one was to be on Totally Wild; the other was to go to Africa. Pip was deeply humbled by

Keely’s dreams. “I was just like, how is it possible that this little girl has these wishes, and yet I have it all?

Just the unfairness of it … it took me aback,” she says.

Pip decided to make Keely’s dreams come true and arranged for her to film a segment for Totally Wild.

“She was in palliative care at home in Cairns and we filmed at the Cairns [Zoom and] Wildlife Dome. She’d done all her research to interview the keepers. She knew more than I did! I remember her dad having to carry her around the enclosures,” Pip says softly. “But that wasn’t the focus at all – it was about Keely being Keely. It wasn’t about what she was going through in that moment. It was just her living out her dream and I thought: this is what matters.”

Keely loved seeing herself on screen. Sadly, she died shortly after filming her Totally Wild segment. Her family asked Pip to speak at Keely’s funeral, which was a profoundly moving moment. They are still in touch today. “It’s been beautiful to see Keely’s sister grow up,” Pip says.

Meeting Keely changed everything for Pip. “The relationship with Keely was that catalyst for me to see there is something more. I’d been at Ten for eight years at that point and I thought: I need a change.”

Although Pip loved hosting kids’

TV, there had always been a little voice in the back of her head that told her she was destined to work more directly with children. And she had the beginnings of an idea that would combine her TV skills with her desire to do good.

Pip shared her vision with an old friend from the Children’s Hospital Foundation, who urged her to run with it. She devoted every spare moment to honing her idea for a TV series for sick kids, made by the kids.

“I didn’t want to be 80 years old, sitting in a rocking chair and wondering what would’ve happened if I’d actually tried,” Pip explains.

By 2014, she had garnered enough support to film a pilot. Friends donated their time, and Pip enlisted a bright boy who she knew would help her sell the concept to potential backers. “We had Scott, another little firecracker, as the face of our pilot,” she says.

Scott had osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, and he had just lost his arm when he agreed to be a part of Juiced TV’s first-ever episode. “He wanted to be a reptile keeper when he got older, so we did a little segment with Scott and a reptile keeper. It was really cool,” Pip says.

During filming, Pip had another moment of clarity. “Scott pulled me aside and said: ‘Pip, you have no idea how much we need something like this’. It was like magic,” she says.

Sadly, Scott passed away, but his role in the pilot episode of Juiced TV

created a legacy that has brightened the lives of many kids just like him. With the pilot filmed, Pip mounted a crowdfunding campaign.

“I set the target at $15k and was just sick to my stomach. I could barely sleep,” she says. “The crowdfunding platform I’d chosen was one where, if you don’t hit your target, you don’t get your money. I thought, ‘We’re not going to get this, it’s just insane’.”

But the community responded.

Pip worked hard to generate interest, running fundraisers to bolster the coffers, and her ambitious project caught the attention of the Today

show, which did a segment. As it aired, money started rolling in from all around the country.

“I had these email notifications and I thought, ‘Oh God, something must have happened with our campaign’. Then I checked the tally and I just started crying. Within five minutes,

“They deserve to have these moments that make them feel like absolute rock stars.”

we were at 30k,” Pip says. “Just to know that people cared, that everyone believed in it, they thought it was worthwhile – it was overwhelming.”

Then the Children’s Hospital provided some funding, and all of a sudden Juiced TV was up and running. In January 2015, it premiered in the hospital, and since then it has gone from strength to strength.

Inspired by the courageous children she has met over the years, Pip has created an entertainment network that engages sick kids and helps demystify life in hospital. Juiced TV

is a half-hour program that is filmed in the Queensland Children’s Hospital and broadcast on its internal network. It can also be viewed via iPads in hospitals in Mackay, Rockhampton and Bundaberg.

“We bring entertainment, distraction, workshops and activities to the hospital so that kids of any age, ability and condition can have something fun to do,” Pip says.

Sometimes Juiced TV goes on the road. Patients have attended movie premieres, done red-carpet interviews and even attended the Logie Awards.

The production values are high and the result is a professional-looking show. In addition to the segments the patients star in, there’s an educational component that aims to normalise the hospital journey.

“We do profiles on the hospital services, staff that you’ll meet, other kids talking about their conditions and how they deal with it,” Pip says.

Amanda, whose daughter Sophie has featured in several Juiced TV

episodes this year, says the service is a gift for parents, as well as the children.

“Juiced TV is helping a whole lot of kids forget about being sick, which is really, really hard. For the parents, being able to watch something and get their mind off the situation for even a moment … it’s life-saving for us,” she says.

Six months after Juiced TV kicked off, its profile got a shot in the arm when a patient named Ula, who’d fought cancer twice, interviewed Hollywood star Johnny Depp in character as Captain Jack Sparrow.

Seeing Ula’s face shine with joy when Captain Jack steps through the door shows what Juiced TV is truly about.

“It’s about making the kids feel less alone,” Pip says. “When that Johnny Depp thing happened, even if you weren’t in the hospital that day, there was such a buzz about it. The fact that someone like him thought to visit and give up four hours of his time is significant, and it shows the kids: ‘You matter. Just because you’re here, doesn’t mean you’ve been forgotten’.”

Since then, the crew has arranged segments with Thor stars Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston; singer Justin Timberlake; Aussie actress Margot Robbie; actor Paul Rudd; and even The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall.

“There are a lot of long-term conditions that kids are dealing with and they deserve to have these moments that make them feel like absolute rock stars,” Pip says.

“Some of the kids have us in stitches. I can remember stories of kids who’d be in isolation and they’d see another kid walk past their door and say, ‘Oh my God, it’s that girl off the TV’. The kids are busting out their signature,” she says, laughing. “It’s just a beautiful point of distraction in so many ways.”

Sophie, 14, got the chance to interview Chris Hemsworth when he made a virtual visit to the hospital this year during lockdown.

“I wasn’t that nervous because I just thought he was another Australian, and I didn’t really have any info other than my mum was in love with him!” she says, and mum Amanda laughs.

Sophie asked ‘Thor’ questions like: “Have you ever been to hospital?” and “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?” She also got to interview her hero, YouTube animator Jaiden, who has nine million subscribers.

Sophie has been in and out of hospital since she suffered a stroke at the age of four and she has also appeared in a special segment called the QSuper Super Hero Awards, in which she honoured her neurologist,

Dr Adriane Sinclair. “Dr Sinclair is very special,” Sophie tells The Weekly. “She helped me a lot throughout my stroke and I just think she’s amazing.”

“It gives a lot more than just TV content,” Amanda says. “They do an amazing job behind the scenes, too.”

Amanda is full of praise for Pip, who talks the kids through each segment and makes sure they’re feeling confident before the cameras roll. “She has a very special way of making something out-of-this-world, but in a calm way,” Amanda says.

Pip admits it’s tough seeing what the kids go through, but says the hospital has a good support team and being able to bring a positive experience to the patients motivates her to grow and develop Juiced TV.

“For us, as a team, what we keep coming back to is: at least we can do this for them. At least they had that hour, and got to pat that puppy,” she says. “When you’re filming with a parent and they say, ‘That’s the first time I’ve seen him smile in a week’, that’s the reason we exist. Every kid has a unique thing that they bring to the show and a unique way of reigniting the spark within the team – they inspire us to do more.” AWW

“It’s about making the kids feel less alone.”