Australian Tumbleweed Awards 2011 – The “What Happened To That?!” Award for Comedies Which Failed to Appear

Looking over the TV listings this year, the one thought that repeatedly came to our minds is “please Australian networks, hold back on the quality shows for a while, we can barely cope with the ones we’ve already got”. And somehow they heard us, so while classics like The Renovators, and the one about cooking ,and the other one about cooking, and the third one about cooking ran for week after week after week, the occasional comedy series that actually sounded like something we’d like to see was quietly pushed back to the grim meathook future of 2012.

Okay, the one comedy series we really did want to see (the ABC assures us the other two nominees will screening in February) was pushed back to “yeah, nah, we’re not going to be making that one, thanks”. Exactly why remains a minor mystery, though we’re willing to blame everything on Nine right up until the moment John Clarke and Ross Stevenson come out and say “we had a lot of trouble coming up with ideas”. Which, considering Clarke’s been talking up doing a sequel since at least the 2008 Olympics, seems a little unlikely. Let’s not forget the classy way Nine treated most of their 2011 comedy output either: if The Games: London Calling actually had happened, an 11pm timeslot by week four would have been firmly on the cards.

THE RESULTS OF THE NEXT CATEGORY, THE “PISSING ON THEIR LEGACY” AWARD, WILL BE ANNOUNCED AT 6:30PM EDT.