Earlier this week 10 broadcast a stand up comedy special from Aaron Chen, If It Weren’t Filmed, Nobody Would Believe. It’s ok. One of the best jokes is hidden in the opening title; Chen also undergoes a mystery costume change halfway through that is never (directly) commented on.
The show is pretty good, not amazingly great. It’s worth the price of entry for a live experience, probably not something you’d purchase to watch again and again. But that’s where we are with comedy on Australian television. Not quite a dumping ground, not exactly a showcase.
Stand ups don’t record their shows when they’re exciting and new. That’s when they’re out there milking their new jokes for all they’re worth. A decent show can generate a year’s worth of work, maybe more if they can tour it overseas. You’re not wasting that on television.
But while recording a show at the end of the run makes financial sense – now you can flog it to the people who’re interested enough to watch you but not interested enough to go see you live – artistically we’re getting a dead fish. Fresh new work from a comedian engaged with the world around them? Nah, just the last gasp of a bunch of ideas they had eighteen months ago.
When someone’s clearly on the way up and getting better all the time – ie Aaron Chen – this kind of show is a time capsule. Nothing wrong with that; we laughed a lot. Drowning during a boring story: so good.
But the more Australian television puts to air stand up specials, the more it stops being the place to go for the best in Australian comedy. If only because the best stand-up comedy is always going to be out there, live on stage.
Well, unless you’re going to see Dave Hughes.
The Australian Roast of John Cleese, which aired recently on Seven, had a few decent laughs in it, but, mostly, it was a slapdash affair. You’d think you could expect better from a show with 15 credited writers[1] and a group of comedians and entertainers roasting the British comedy legend which included Joel Creasey, Lehmo, Damien Power, Lawrence Mooney, Tom Gleeson, Christie Whelan Browne, Alex Lee, Rhonda Burchmore, Steve Vizard and Stephen Hall.
But as each roaster delivered their bit, it became clear that the 15 writers had all gone off separately to write their assigned speeches and had produced roughly the same set of easy gags. We lost count of the number of fat jokes directed at host Shane Jacobson. We’re not saying some of them weren’t funny, but man, it’s not like he was the guy being roasted. Similarly, how many gags did we need about Mooney’s substance abuse and firing from Triple M? Or Gleeson’s red/bald head and Gold Logie win? Or Burchmore’s age and plastic surgery? Write some different material for each person, guys![2]
But even when the speeches eventually got around to roasting Cleese, each one of them felt pretty much the same. It’s almost like the writers had a series of dot points to work through:
To be fair, the above-mentioned things are all true – especially the gags about Cleese’s recent terrible film work – but why wimp out in mentioning The Very Excellent Mr Dundee? Or even better, why not roast Cleese about his dodgy recent TV work, like his plan to resurrect Fawlty Towers.
There were a few highlights, though. Rhonda Burchmore singing an original song called “John Cleese is Dead,” in which Cleese pretended to die halfway through, was pretty funny, in a The Producers sort of way. And Stephen Hall (also one of the credited writers) recounting how he’d played the Cleese role in the 2016 stage adaptation of Fawlty Towers, alternately impersonating and ribbing Cleese, to Cleese’s obvious delight, was also good value. But then it was back to the divorce gags, including some from surprise guest Camilla Cleese, John’s writer and actor daughter. Although, hers, were at least a bit more pointed, like how Cleese’s current wife is 18 days younger than Camilla’s elder sister.
But eventually, after more than an hour of this, it was time for the man himself to get a right to reply, which he did in typical John Cleese style. He may be old, and he may be problematic, and he may not be great at picking films to appear in, but somewhere within him, he still has it.
P.S. Was it just us who noticed that no one on the production team seemed to have a clear idea as to what the show was called? Throughout the show, host Shane Jacobson held a card reading “John Cleese Roast Live!” but the podium which Jacobson and the various roasters stood behind had “John Cleese Roast” on it, while the titles sequence and advance publicity had “The Australian Roast of John Cleese.”
[1] Or you would if you’d never seen an average episode of Saturday Night Live, which employs a great many more writers. And is always average.
[2] And the writers pretty much were all guys.
Press release time!
March 12, 2024 – Stan, Australia’s leading local streaming service and unrivalled home of original productions, announced 25 Stan Originals across television, film and documentaries during an intimate Stan Originals Showcase held at the iconic Sydney Opera House.
We know what you’re thinking: comedy is back baby! After all, with 25 Stan Originals heading our way, there’s got to be a bunch of comedies in there, right?
And that’s the biggest laugh you’ll get here. Oh sure, there’s stuff like this:
comedy crime thriller Population 11 starring Ben Feldman premiering Thursday
Which, as we all know, really means “crime thriller where people act like dickheads”. But otherwise the line-up is full of this:
psychological drama series
And this:
gripping psychological thriller
Plus this:
A psychological thriller
And of course, this:
10-episode LGBTQIA+ drama
(presumably there’s a psychological angle there somewhere)
The closest we get to a local comedy in the whole 25 shows announced is this:
SUNNY NIGHTS
Starting production in 2024, darkly-comedic drama series Sunny Nights is about how a little bit of sun, a change of scenery, and a touch of violent crime can help a person find their true self. The series follows two siblings who venture to Sydney determined to grow their struggling spray tan business, but when they get caught up in the city’s criminal underworld, they must figure out how to stay alive, out of prison, and in the black. Directed by Trent O’Donnell, with writers Ty Freer, Nick Keetch, Marieke Hardy, Lally Katz, Clare Sladden and Niki Aken. A Jungle Entertainment (Stan Original Series Population 11) and Echo Lake Entertainment Production (The Great), with major production investment from Stan in association with Screen Australia.
Hey, Marieke Hardy’s still getting work! Guess that’s the second laugh here.
You might not want to hold your breath waiting for a third.
As previously mentioned, currently Australian television is serving up one (1) new Australian comedy series: The Weekly with Charlie Pickering. One show. Across all of Australian television. Real solid foundation we’ve got for a blog there.
This perhaps wouldn’t be quite so big a problem if The Weekly was any good at its job. As we’ve detailed in the past, across the show’s nine year history that job has remained somewhat unclear. Charlie’s in a suit, he’s out of a suit, first there’s a team of co-presenters, then suddenly where’s Briggs? You get the idea.
One thing that has remained the same is the title: The Weekly. It’s a show that covers the week in news. One week’s worth of news, one episode of The Weekly. We thought that was fairly clear. Seems our mistake was in assuming the week in question was the week just past and not, oh, any old random week from a few months back.
How else to explain why the latest episode of The Weekly – which went to air March 6 – featured a segment collecting Scott Morrison’s ten “greatest” media appearances. Scott Morrison, you may recall, stopped being Prime Minister in 2022. So these clips? Almost all of them were over two years old. Topical! Even more topical considering he stopped being relevant two years ago! Next week: former PM Malcolm Fraser caught with his pants down in 1986.
But hold on, The Weekly had an excuse: Scott Morrison just quit Parliament. Perfectly reasonable to take a look back at his greatest hits, right? Well, Scotty from Marketing announced his departure January 23; he finally hauled arse Wednesday Feb 28 – the same day as last week’s episode of The Weekly.
Remember, this was just a collection of old clips cobbled together to commemorate an event announced well ahead of time. Was there any reason they couldn’t have aired it on Feb 28? Was there just too much comedy gold that week to fit it in? Is it just another sign of a show that might as well be retitled Can’t Be Arsed?
Guess we’ve got the whole week to think about it.
Sometimes when you want to get rid of something, slowly whittling it down to nothing is the way to go. Other times, a big rug pull to get it over and done with works best. And when you’re the ABC looking to trash 50-odd years of satirical content, why not both at once?
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Over the decades, the ABC’s track record when it comes to satire is spotty at best. BackBerner? Gillies and Company? Everyone trying to be satirical on 730 who weren’t Clarke & Dawe? Massive, years-long stretches of Good News Week and The Glasshouse? There’s a reason why most truly funny people run a mile from the term “satire”.
The important thing was that it was there; the door was firmly open just in case someone decent came along. And it gave the ABC an identity, something that set it apart and brought viewers in. If you were unhappy with the politicans of the day, the ABC presented something – usually of dubious quality – that stuck it to them. You know, the whole “giving an audience what they want” thing.
And they kept on doing it. When The Chaser finally staggered offscreen, having reduced the idea of satirical comment to “stupid stunts”, the ABC brought back Shaun Micallef and got him to do Newstopia for them only better. Over on ABC2 there was Tonightly (briefly). And just to keep the satirical ball rolling, The Weekly was there to fill in the gaps and oh wait we’re starting to see where the rot set in.
But for a while, things weren’t too bad. After John Clarke’s sudden departure from this mortal coil, Sammy J was given the Clarke & Dawe slot; meanwhile, Mark Humphries started turning up on 730. Neither of them were what you’d call “good”, but again, the point was to keep the door open in case someone good came along.
Then the doors started closing. Tonightly had already flamed out. Sammy J got the axe. Humphries left (jumped or pushed, who knows). And of course, Mad as Hell finished up. Being the kind of high profile satirical program that you’d think would require some managerial gesture towards replacing, the ABC made sure to say nothing and do even less.
It’s not like satire has gone out of style or anything. The internet’s full of the stuff; even local producers are doing pretty well out of it. But the ABC seems to have made a decision somewhere along the line that making fun of politicans? Yeah, that’s not for us. At all.
But what about The Weekly? Maybe once we might have said “well, at least it’s keeping the door open”, but after Mad as Hell ended and was not replaced it’s clear that there are no guaranteed timeslots for satire. All that’s left is to judge The Weekly on its merits, and… yeah, about that.
There’s really no reason why The Weekly couldn’t go hard on politicans. It’s just a man behind a desk saying stuff; maybe say something insightful or funny once in a while? Instead, it’s a clip of a news report calling New South Wales “the asbestos state”, then Pickering says “that won’t look good on a license plate” while they show us a picture of a license plate that reads THE ASBESTOS STATE and the audience goes wild.
That’d be fine if… actually, that kind of shit joke is never fine. But if it was the worst joke on the show, we’d live. Instead, The Weekly just stumbles around, barely aware of what comedy even is, using up its stockpile of Millionaire Hot Seat intros because eh, they already got the intern to compile them so might as well.
It wouldn’t be more difficult for them to make the same shit jokes only about shit politicans. It wouldn’t require any more effort to watch the actual news instead of Sky News. Their refusal to engage with politics on any level beyond “here’s a clip we saw on the news, wild huh?” is a conscious decision they’ve made: soft targets only, fellas.
Which seems to be ABC policy across the board these days.
Over the years, the various incarnations of the ABC’s new comedy talent initiative Fresh Blood have thrown up some shows of variable quality. But in 2024, things are looking, well, a lot better than we expected. Whether any of the 10 three-part Fresh Blood pilots recently released on YouTube will catch the eyes of the powers that be is yet to be seen, of course. But here’s what we thought of them…
What’s it about?
Vidya Rajan (Aunty Donna’s Coffee Café) plays Ruby Rai, an up-and-coming private investigator trying to find the Monstera Murderer, who steals monsteras from people’s homes and kills them, documenting their crimes on social media. As part of her investigations, Rai interviews an annoying polyamorous trio who are more interested in speaking their truths than helping her solve the crime, appears on a commercial radio show hosted by Gobbo and Chi Chi (a spot-on parody of Kyle and Jackie O), and tracks the Monstera Murderer to a local variety store.
Would we like to see more of it?
Absolutely. Even if the crime is maybe a little dumb, Rai is an engaging and likeable central character, and the show gets plenty of laughs from the idiotic people she has to deal with.
What’s it about?
Comedian Annie Louey (perhaps best known for presenting the ABC’s China Tonight) plays Annie, who works as an assistant for disorganised funeral business proprietor Sal, whilst mourning the death of her father. As in Ruby Rai P.I., Annie finds herself having to interact with various idiotic but funny characters through her work. The mad/racist uncle of a deceased dirt biker and a misogynist tyre repairman obsessed with building his social media following are particular highlights.
Would we like to see more of it?
Again, absolutely. Writers Annie Louey and Joshua Ladgrove have created a solid and funny central premise, and these pilot episodes demonstrate their ability to create recognisable and entertaining characters.
What’s it about?
Day Job is a documentary about the staff at a bowling alley, most of whom are struggling graduates who don’t want to work there. Boss Rico is an annoying bully who thinks he should get a promotion, while the staff are so underpaid that some of them are living at the alley.
Would we like to see more of it?
Not really. This show leans into the documentary style too much, having characters talk over the top of each other to the point of the show being incomprehensible at times. Worse, it sacrifices potential comedy for realism. The end result is some recognisable but not especially funny characters and situations.
What’s it about?
Three young adults of the diaspora, who grew up in Sydney’s western suburbs, move to the inner west and try to make it in art, fashion, and life in general. We see the characters deal with racial profiling, clueless white people, and their traditional older relatives’ expectations.
Would we like to see more of it?
This has potential, although it’s hard to see how the three characters fit together (apart from that they’re non-white and grew up in Western Sydney). While this has overtones of dramedy, there is some funny and pithy commentary on both people from the diaspora and inner-city white people, as well as some joyous moments of triumph, liberation, and celebration throughout.
What’s it about?
In this comedy about juggling traditional parental expectations with your own desires, girls school attendee Urvi (Melbourne comedian Urvi Majumdar) is desperate to date Ryan, the hottest guy at Beaumont Boys.
Would we like to see more of it?
For these pilots, we follow the plot of Urvi trying to get a date with Ryan. In a full series, we’d presumably learn more about Urvi’s parents, sister, school friends, teachers, and the boys from Beaumont. And from the brief glimpse we get of the other characters, there are plenty of opportunities for laughs in this show. The School Principal, who appears all too briefly in one of the episodes, is particularly funny.
What’s it about?
When best friends Norah (played by the show’s writer and creator Wendy Mocke) and Charli (Preppers’ Joseph Althouse) die in a freak accident, they find themselves in Ancestral Headquarters, a blackfellas afterlife, where they’re assigned to help young Black people in crisis. Their first case is Erik, a talented young rugby player about to be signed by the Brisbane Bronchos, who actually wants to be an actor. Can Norah and Charli help Erik get into the school production of Macbeth?
Would we like to see more of it?
Bad Ancestors is a premise with a lot of potential, as there are endless possibilities for the young people Norah and Charli could help in each episode. Although based on this pilot, a full series might lean further towards “feel-good” rather than out-and-out comedy. Having said that, we really enjoyed the parodies of pretentious inner-city white people, from Erik’s audition panel asking him to “channel his ancestors,” to Norah and Charli’s yoga-obsessed white alter egos.
What’s it about?
Katie (Gold Diggers’ Danielle Walker), a journalist based in the city, returns to her rural hometown, Gowa. She spends time with her parents and best friend Renae (Walker’s co-writer Lauren Bonner), and documents what the people of Gowa are going through before it floods due to global warming.
Would we like to see more of it?
In this pilot, you don’t get much sense of the looming catastrophe of the flood, it’s more about your parents being weird and annoying when you spend time with them as an adult. While there are some laughs here, this is not one of the funnier or better shows in this year’s Fresh Blood.
What’s it about?
In this parody of a late-90s/early-00s kids show, host Emma (Emma Holland, as seen on Have You Been Paying Attention?) tries to teach children about art with the help of a talking Renaissance torso, pancake artist Chef Gina and a local postman who fancies her. Whilst similar to Shirty The Slightly Aggressive Bear from The Late Show, this is far more surreal, psychopathic and creepy, particularly when some of Emma’s backstory is revealed.
Would we like to see more of it?
Definitely. This is weird and disturbing but it’s also very funny. And while it seems like the kind of premise that would work better as a series of sketches, the hints that Emma isn’t presenting the show voluntarily and is somehow being manipulated by the show’s producer could make for an interesting plot.
What’s it about?
The six all-woman and non-binary crew members of a spaceship blame themselves for blowing up a planet they’ve come to explore. But was it them, or something else?
Would we like to see more of it?
Maybe. This is based on an existing podcast series, so there’s already plenty of material to turn this into a full series. Having said that, the pilot TV shows weren’t hugely hilarious in comparison to some of the other shows in this series of Fresh Blood.
What’s it about?
According to Screen Australia’s press release…
Reg, a hot-headed animated First Nations man living in real-world Redfern, gets evicted from his home and goes in search of his place of belonging (which he can’t remember) guided only by the spirit of his late wife Agnes and Wiiny: a little gum-stoned furry flirt who he can’t understand.
Would we like to see more of it?
Yes, but we can’t see any of it, as Kingsland hasn’t turned up on the ABC’s YouTube account yet. According to this Instagram post from co-creator Josh Yasserie, the “live action side” has been filmed, suggesting there are animated elements to this show.
Of course, this isn’t the first time a Fresh Blood pilot has been announced and then hasn’t appeared. Remember 2014’s Pet Quarantine?
This show mocks Australian racism and provides a commentary on the state of Australian attitudes towards ‘other’ cultures. It is a show built on stereotype that doesn’t seek to judge or condone but highlights the hilarity of the different values and desires of cultures from around the world. By creating a microcosm of the Australian multicultural landscape in a Pet Quarantine Station (perhaps the least invasive risk of infection into white Australia) and concentrating on attitudes towards immigrants and ‘new’ Australians onto fluffy, childlike puppets, Pet Quarantine seeks to highlight the nation’s dirty and unspoken sentiment of fear, mistrust and ignorance of all ‘others.’ The creators of Pet Quarantine have their own fan bases. The original Beached Az YouTube video was viewed more than 8 million times and spawned a successful series for the ABC and merchandise. Nick Mattick, who plays the title character Swabby, is part of the comedy duo Smart Casual, who have played at comedy festivals around the country and overseas.
If/when Kingsland (or Pet Quarantine) get a release, we’ll update this post to include a review.
Update, 22/02/24
According to TV Tonight, Kingsland “will be available to view on ABC TV and iview soon”.
The thing with good comedy is, it always has a point of view. One or more human beings found something funny and decided to share it with the rest of us. And when you don’t have that, you have The Weekly.
Usually comedy series that lack soul make up for it with money. At one end, you have stand-up. It’s extremely cheap but still entertaining because it’s one person’s unfiltered (well, you know) take on things. At the other, you have expensive but empty sitcoms and marketing-led movies. Jokes are just something they throw in to make it seem like humans were involved in the process.
The Weekly exists outside that spectrum. It’s both cheap and soulless, a show that’s nothing but a host behind a desk and a handful of guests – either ABC employees or touring comedians with something to promote. Yet it still feels like nobody really wants to be there.
This is clearly insane. Australia is full of talented, funny people who would leap at the chance to be on the ABC every week for months at a time. Australia also has well-paying jobs for haircut models who can read an autocue. Neither of these trends results in The Weekly.
And yet, here we are. Watching a show so half-arsed that even when the source of around 20% of its content – contestant intros on Millionaire Hot Seat – was axed, they went “oh well, let’s just put to air the leftovers”. Couldn’t even be bothered coming up with a farewell twist for this long running time-waster.
For years The Weekly staggered around with clearly no idea what it was trying to be. It’s both impressive and depressing that it finally seems to have figure out what it wants to be: shit.
Remember when it featured Kitty Flanagan or Judith Lucy? And Pickering would occasionally front a good-intentioned segment that tried to explain why something was news? Now each episode ends with Pickering ripping off Mick Molloy ripping off John Belushi by doing a bit where he says something is no damn good. Only those guys went over-the-top to get laughs because they were comedians and Pickering just reads lines off an autocue same as every other bit because he’s just a host.
Not that it really matters because what’s going on with the audience anyway? We expect them to laugh at unfunny material because that’s what they signed up for, but this crowd is going nuts over material that isn’t even recognisably comedy. Sure, The Weekly‘s never been a show that sold itself. But trying to drown out the crap material with hootin’ and a hollin’? That doesn’t exactly improve the experience for those watching at home.
Plus in a textbook case of saying the quiet part out loud, each week The Weekly features a sketch where some elder statesman of Australian television (Barry Cassidy, Margaret Pomeranz) passes hilarious thumbs-down judgement on a program (even if it’s The Weekly itself) aimed at young people. Hey kids, never forget who’s really running things on your ABC.
The history of Australian comedy is littered with satirical programs that were just awful, garbage programs. But while some of them were possibly worse than The Weekly, none of those trainwrecks lasted ten seasons with no end in sight. What the fuck is wrong with the ABC that this turd wasn’t flushed years ago?
If there’s one big problem with the current wave of dramedies – and there’s dozens of problems, but let’s continue – it’s that they’ve replaced comedy’s jokes and drama’s drama with… nothing. Dramadies are just aimless, drawn out dramas with a mildly amusing premise. They’re half an hour of limp dialogue and static staging that builds up to a punchline that’s almost always “you just wasted your time”.
Funding bodies love them because they tick various boxes audiences don’t care about, which is why they almost always start with a big funding body logo. Creators love them because they’re easy; they’re meant to have low dramatic stakes and “naturalistic” dialogue that’s unfunny and forgettable. There’s almost nothing you can do to make the format work. Or at least, that’s what we thought until we saw Triple Oh!
Now available at SBS On Demand, Triple Oh! is the story of two paramedics – Tayls (Brooke Satchwell) and Cate (Tahlee Fereday) – who attend various somewhat amusing emergencies. The twist is, Tayls has a policy of having sex every time a patient dies. And as someone just died before the start of episode one, newbie Cate is torn. Should she overthink things, or just enjoy the afterglow?
Why it works is simple: each episode (there are five) is around 7-8 minutes long. Someone has a medical problem, our leads banter is interrupted when they get the call out, they turn up and sort things out. The story moves forward a notch, we’re done.
There’s nothing here that’s all that much better than your typical dramedy. The medical problems are more wacky than drama (two of the five are sex related; one is a time-waster that leaves the paramedics trapped in an elevator; one involves too-tight jeans). The banter is good but not exactly memorable. The on-going plot is a will-they won’t-they deal complicated briefly by some unexpected social media fame and Tayls’ seen-it-all cynicism.
But by stripping everything down to the bare essentials, it loses all the bloat that makes most dramedies unwatchable. Turns out that whole “brevity is the soul of wit” thing goes double when you’re dealing with a guy with a broomhandle up his arse.
Sure, even without 18 minutes of blather every episode, this isn’t some rapid-fire joke machine. If you want that, there’s a few candidates in the current First Blood schedule worth checking out. Triple Oh! just has some nice performances, some nicely shot scenes, and a bunch of throwaway comedy ideas.
And it’s around 50 minutes all up. Which turns out to be exactly as long as it needs to be.