One of the things Australian sketch comedy used to be known for is taking a swipe at other television shows. Whether it was Fast Forward mocking Derryn Hinch or however many times Paul McCarthy wasted our time with his sub-par Kochie impression, mocking other shows was part and parcel of the sketch comedy scene here.... Read More »
Despite our amazingly persistent reputation for “shitting on” just about everything, we’re not intentionally cruel people at Tumbleweeds HQ (also: we are people, plural – there really is more than one person writing this stuff, honest). When a show comes along like Hard Quiz, we know why the ABC has made it and we sympathise... Read More »
Well, this was a waste of time. Australia has a strong track record of putting to air sitcoms made by people who’ve never actually seen a sitcom, and this was another one of those. Here’s an idea: when somebody in management decides to give a locally made sitcom a go, maybe go ahead and make... Read More »
So part of Team Tumbleweeds crawled out from behind their stockpile of old Ned and You Can’t Stop the Murders DVDs and went outside to see some live comedy. Well, by “live” we mean the preview at Melbourne’s ACMI of two (the first two?) episodes of the highly anticipated new show from Kate McLennan and... Read More »
If there’s a utopia for Australian comedy, it’s not Utopia series 3. The third series of a sitcom should build on past successes – and Utopia’s previous series were largely successful – but also give us, the audience, something new. Based on last night’s episode of Utopia, there’s nothing new for us to see here.... Read More »
Why is the ABC so obsessed with advice programs? There’s a reason why the commercial networks don’t make them and it’s not “duhh we forgot”: most Australians consider themselves perfectly capable of living their own lives thank you very much, and when they do need advice they turn to people who have a passing resemblance... Read More »
Press release time! Sideliners spin a different take on sport ABC’s new sports entertainment show Sideliners premieres on Friday, 21 July at 6pm on ABC and ABC iview Tuesday, July 18, 2017 — Olympic champion and media all-rounder Nicole Livingstone and comedian Tegan Higginbotham have joined forces on this new one-hour live sport entertainment panel... Read More »
Ronny Chieng International Student has been that rare thing in Australian sitcom: a show you want to see more of. If it was released on Netflix, you’d sit down to watch one and then realise two hours later that you’d just watched four of them. Why does it work so well? Partly it’s the familiarity... Read More »
A comedy game show pitched as “A show where we attempt to find out why we do the weird things that we do” is doomed to fail. Digging down into people’s weird behaviour is a great way to find comedy. A game show is, nine times out of ten, not. And so it proves to... Read More »
You may have noticed we’re three weeks into the second season of The Family Law and we still haven’t managed to review it. But more likely you haven’t: while even high profile Australian television struggles to get attention these days, The Family Law, AKA the only Australian comedy SBS will be broadcasting this year, has... Read More »