Comedy Mysteries

Reading the Tea Leaves

Is Q&A a terrible show or what? Answers accepted only in the form of a snappy tweet that we can run across the bottom of the screen as we co-op social media into not realising that the ‘debate’ we offer is nothing more enlightening than the dregs of the letters page in your local News... Read More »

A Solution to a Problem We Didn’t Know We Had

Why doesn’t Australia have any ensemble comedies? As in, why don’t we make sitcoms where we get together a bunch of actors people have actually heard of? Okay, sure, we don’t make sitcoms full stop these days, but on the rare occasions when we do make them – Lowdown, Laid *shudder*, Outland, The Jesters, Twentysomething,... Read More »

Great Comedy Mysteries of the 21st Century #17: The Wedding Party

So back in 2010 the opening night film at the Melbourne International Film Festival was Australian big-screen comedy The Wedding Party, in which Josh Lawson agrees to a fake marriage with Isabel Lucas even though he’s deeply in love with Kestie Morassi. Wait, we mean those actors play characters who’re doing all that, the actors... Read More »

What’s So Funny About the Future of Australian Comedy?

For a few years now – well, it feels like years at least – we’ve been complaining / warning that Australian television likes everything about comedy but the making-people-laugh stuff. Of course, who listens to what we have to say? And so it has come to pass that in a few short weeks (July 25th)... Read More »

We’re Bashing Our Heads Against a Brick Wall Over Here

Sometimes it’s good to take on board opinions diametrically opposed to yours to broaden your view on a subject. Other times you find yourself reading something that’s just plain wrong. Guess which is which with regards to The Sunday Age‘s Melinda Houston and her most recent write-up of Randling? Everyone, including the audience at home,... Read More »

Saving Schembri

Sometimes problems just solve themselves. Put another way, who knew that two of our recent postsĀ  – one on the demise of Jim Schembri, disliked film critic but avid comedy watcher, the other on the slightly surprising news that the Melbourne Herald-Sun would again be sponsoring the Melbourne International Comedy Festival despite the general disapproval... Read More »

It’s Not Easy Being Green

We were going to talk about a review of Outland, but… ah, what the hell, let’s start with that. In The Age‘s Green Guide television supplement for Feb 16th, Jim Schembri had this to say about Outland: “The problem with this stab at a hip, savvy sitcom is that it is too gay”. Considering the... Read More »

Beans Beans, The Musical Fruit…

Chris Lilley’s been doing a lot of press for the US launch of Angry Boys lately, and when he hasn’t been talking about hanging out with teenagers at parties or painting Australia as a racist land that just doesn’t get him* he’s been talking up his global achievements in a manner that’s more than a... Read More »

What Happens When You Don’t Explain the Joke

There’s a proper Vale Hamster Wheel post on its way, but we wanted to bring this up first: it seems Age TV critic Jim Schembri either can’t take a joke, or simply doesn’t get it: For me – and this will come as no surprise – the biggest laugh came when their awards for outrageous... Read More »

Flying the Flag

Ever get the feeling large swathes of Australian society aren’t actually alive? Oh sure, they walk and talk and seem human, but bring up one of any number of obvious hot-button issues and they spew out the same clockwork preprogrammed responses time and time again. Some might say this kind of dehumanising imagery is the... Read More »