Comedy Mysteries

Outta the Way, Gramps

Wil Anderson has a new book to promote, and we all know what that means: talking about ways to get more young people on the ABC! Wait, what? In a feature headlined “Wil Anderson’s bold solution for the ABC’s youth problem” – presumably the bold part is that he’s not offering to give up any... Read More »

Comedy: What is it Good For?

Australian comedy: what’s the point? Making us laugh, sure – but a fart can manage that. Which puts the collected works of Charlie Pickering in a pretty bad light. On the other hand, there’s this: Which was a timely reminder that, once upon a time, Australian satire used to go beyond just re-stating what was... Read More »

One Idea, No Joke

It’s got to be tough for Australia’s political comedians at the moment. Not only do they have to struggle with the whole “not funny” thing, but with a new Federal government in power they’ve finally got to come up with new jokes. Or do they? Remember last week’s The Weekly haha of course not. Here’s... Read More »

Hey Hey Its Yet Another Bloody Clip Show

Probably the best way to look at Hey Hey It’s Saturday in 2022 is to not look at it at all. The second best way is to look at it as a shed out the back of Daryl Somers’ place full of dubious old crap he just can’t let go of. If he wants to... Read More »

And They’re Off!

One week into the official election campaign and… yeah. Remember when political satire was a central part of Australian culture? You do? Have fun down at Services Australia trying to claim the old age pension. Slightly less snarkily, these days any election campaign really drives home the shrinking opportunities for political comedy on Australian television.... Read More »

Mad as Hell in Shock Edit Controversy

Well this was interesting: Sadly for us, because like everyone else in the Australian media we are little more than ravenous black holes of hate that require everyone else to suffer in order to even slightly relieve our pain, this wasn’t some massive scandal involving government interference or the ABC caving to outside interests. Instead,... Read More »

What We Talk About When We Talk About Not Having Anything to Talk About

Hey, where’d all the scripted comedy go? When we started this blog the basic idea was to do two or three posts a week, because each week there was usually two or three shows on television we could talk about. There’d be something new, something in the middle of its run, maybe a press release... Read More »

Don’t You Remember The Days of the Old School Yard

As we reach the tail end of the comedy year, which is a fairly inaccurate way to describe things as the tail end is where the shit comes from and that’s an all year-round situation, it’s hard not to reflect on the 2021 that was. And then hurriedly try to reflect even further back because... Read More »

Hughesy Loses It

Over the last 24 hours or so, millionaire property owner and TV host Dave Hughes has managed to make a bit of a dickhead of himself. Going on social media – and seriously, we could stop right there – to stand up for gyms in the midst of a covid pandemic spread in part by... Read More »

Don’t Get All Dramatic

Wakefield is a new ABC series from Jungle Entertainment, the production company responsible for, amongst other things, Squinters, Sando, The Moodys and Here Come the Habibs. It stars, amongst others, Felicity Ward, Sam Simmons and Mandy “I was in two seasons of Squinters” McElhinney. So it’s a comedy? Fuck no. Comedy in this country faces... Read More »