Queensland Playground is a comprehensive look at the Gold Coast during the late 1950s. Produced by the Commonwealth Film Unit (directed by Richard Mason and shot in Vistarama and Eastmancolour), it portrays the Gold Coast as an inviting paradise where it’s always warm and where you can relax and leave your cares behind.

Scenes of large numbers of people doing a Gold Coast version of the hokey-pokey seem odd now but they were an institution at the time and a chance for younger people to meet one another. Every morning at 11 am Doug Roughton would call out over the beach radio and huge numbers of people, sometimes as many as 300, would gather to participate.

It also features the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary where flocks of lorikeets arrive twice a day to be hand fed.