Tag: The Micallef Programme

The Wonderful World of Australian Comedy Online Part 3: Scripted Podcasts

It's hard not to have respect for anyone who's gone to the trouble of making a scripted comedy show, particularly those producing podcasts, who are doing it for love rather than money. And if you listen to such a podcast there's a bonus – a bonus I wasn't really expecting after sitting through hours and hours of almost entirely dreadful chat-based podcasts – some scripted podcasts are actually worth listening... Read More »

We come not to praise Double Take, but to bury it

This week sees the last episode of Channel Seven’s sketch series Double Take. Unlike its former stablemate, the Ed Kavalee-hosted TV Burp, there are no calls for a second... Read More »

A Flaming Bag of FM-friendly turds

On JJJ a few weeks back, while talking up his upcoming ABC television series, John Safran described it as being full of pranks and making fun of people – basically, “everything people don’t want in comedy anymore”. And he has a... Read More »

Double Take Take Two

Seven isn’t quite confident enough of this week’s new return to sketch comedy Double Take to send out full episodes to reviewers, but they have sent out discs featuring ten minutes worth of sketches to various media outlets and surprise surprise, one just happens to have fallen into our... Read More »

Great Australian Comedy Mysteries of the 20th Century #1: Shaun Micallef on Comic Relief 1999

Back in 2006 a person on a forum I frequented asked whether it was true that Shaun Micallef had appeared on Comic Relief in 1999. In order to confirm this I went straight to the BBC's INFAX database, which lists, among others things, who appeared in what programme. I typed in Micallef's name but found he was not listed. Then I typed in Comic Relief 1999, but did not spot Micallef in the cast list. I concluded that Shaun Micallef had not been in the show - it seemed pretty unlikely anyway – and totally forgot about... Read More »

The Chaser is still exactly the same

A recent article which appeared in the Herald-Sun and various other Murdoch-owned newspapers and websites argued that The Chaser had “gone soft”, “looked tentative” and was now taking “aim at some easy targets”. It's hard to not ask where Vickery and Horan were during the first two series of The Chaser's War on Everything, or even the first two episodes of the current... Read More »