If you’ve watched Front Bar, you might’ve gleaned that he once worked in a bottle shop, played AFL for Collingwood under 19s and in the VFA team, Prahran, earning the nickname “The Orchid” because, he’s wryly explained, he only flourished in perfect conditions.

In marked contrast to the approach of many media players, he has a scant social media presence. You won’t find him posting pictures of his breakfast, his baby or his adorable new puppy on Instagram, let alone happy snaps with his partner. Interviews are granted rarely and reluctantly.

I scored one in his early TV days, before he had the clout to graciously decline. In 2009, he was hosting the short-lived SBS history quiz ADbc, which paired historians with comedians with the idea of demonstrating that history could be fascinating and fun.

Promoting the production, Pang gave an indication of the qualities that have made him such an entertaining and enduring TV presence: warmth, wit and humility.

“The academics who’ve come on have picked up that we’re not trying to make them look silly,” he explained.

“They’re an integral part of the show and their knowledge is what the comedians feed off. It’s more interesting and it’s more fun to see people work together. We’ve found that the academics are a lot funnier than you might think and that the comedians know a lot more than you might expect. To me, that seems like a really good mix, with a host who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

The self-deprecation has long been there. For eight years he co-hosted SBS’s coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest with Julia Zemiro, initially noting that he knew nothing about the event. But he proved an ideal foil for Zemiro, who’d followed the glitter-fest since childhood. When they retired from the role in 2017, he said: “There are only so many sequins, burning pianos, power ballads and singing Russian grannies one man can celebrate in a career.”

In 2018, when he did the podcast Santo, Sam and Ed’s Cup Fever! in the lead-up to and during the World Cup, he also professed not to really know why he was there. Cilauro and Kavalee were the experts, he maintained: he just turned up and deferred to them on all matters soccer-related.

One of the reliable pleasures of watching HYBPA? and The Front Bar is seeing how much the participants enjoy each other’s company. For viewers, that sense of fun is irresistible. And Pang, though he’d probably hate to be singled out for attention, is a key contributor.

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If that Gold Logie nomination does pan out, pity the poor publicist charged with guiding his campaign to glory, because it would be an Everest-like challenge built around someone who steadfastly rejects that kind of attention. And cheers to him for that. His work speaks eloquently for itself.

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