Like Moths to a Lame
Press release time!
Sketch comedy returns to Australian screens! The Moth Effect launching 30 July on Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video’s new Australian six-part Original satirical sketch comedy series The Moth Effect from Bondi Hipsters co-creator Nick Boshier and Tonightly’s Jazz Twemlow
From the less attractive half of the Bondi Hipsters and the comedic savants that created Nice Shorts comes The Moth Effect – a six-part daft and joyous journey into comedy satire
COMING TO AMAZON PRIME VIDEO WEEKLY FROM 30 JULY
Produced by Bunya Entertainment and Amazon Studios
SERIES SYNOPSIS
The world is melting but fear not: satirical sketch show The Moth Effect is here to repeatedly flap and bump into humanity until all our problems go away. Created by Nick Boshier and Jazz Twemlow, this satirical bonanza features some of Australia’s best and funniest performers as they punch up and punch themselves, tackling everything from climate change and reality TV to the military industrial complex and time travel paradoxes. There’s no target too weird, complicated, silly, or dumb in season one of The Moth Effect, as Australia’s best and funniest performers send up humanity in 2021.
OVERVIEW
The Moth Effect is a 6-part sketch comedy series filmed in Sydney Australia for release on Amazon Prime Video from Friday 30 July in Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand, plus select additional territories launching later this year.
Nick Boshier and Jazz Twemlow are bringing a new kind of satirical comedy to 2021, going broader, bigger and funnier than ever before with a sketch show that goes above the news cycle. This weekly show condenses current meaty issues, zeitgeisty vibes, and cultural catastrophes into quality, high production-value universal comedy.
Featuring sharply written sketch comedy, where no area is off limits, The Moth Effect pokes fun at social movements, parodies the worlds of breakfast and reality TV, the Aussie way of life, and much more, all with sheer comedic flair. The Moth Effect is set to deliver the finest Australian sketch comedy for Amazon Prime members.
The Moth Effect, features over 30 sketches, music videos and interstitials starring superstars including Bryan Brown, Vincent D’Onofrio, David Wenham, Jack Thompson, Miranda Otto, Ben Lawson, Peter O’Brien, Kate Box, Zoe Terakes, Miranda Tapsell and Jake Ryan alongside some of the best and freshest Aussie and Kiwi comedic talent and personalities including Mark Humphries, Nazeem Hussain, Zoe Coombs Marr, Jonny Brugh, Lucinda Price, Dave Woodhead, Louis Hanson, Steen Raskopoulos, Tim Franklin, Sam Cotton, Christiaan van Vuuren, Sarah Bishop, Sam Campbell, Megan Wilding and Brooke Boney.
The Moth Effect is directed by Craig Anderson (Double the Fist, Review with Myles Barlow, Laid, Black Comedy) and Gracie Otto (Under the Volcano, The Other Guy, Bump). Produced by Lauren Elliott (KGB, Small Town Hackers, DAFUQ?) and Jordana Johnson (Nice Shorts), and Executive Produced by Sophia Zachariou (Nice Shorts, The Checkout, Gruen, The Chaser, Shaun Micallef’s Mad As Hell and Judith Lucy’s Spiritual Journey). The series was written by Nick Boshier and Jazz Twemlow with a team of contributing writers including Sarah Bishop, Bridie Connell, Mark Humphries, Nazeem Hussain, Natesha Somasundaram, David Woodhead and Meg O’Connell and Ramsay David Nuthall.
CREATOR’S STATEMENT
Moths are famously distracted by bright, shiny lights and as people we’re often drawn to the biggest, loudest spectacle, even if it’s bad for us. We have created The Moth Effect to take Prime Video viewers on a daft, joyous, and every-so-often-not-a-dumb journey into satirical absurdity. The series seeks to tap into what’s on everyone’s mind and even tap into what’s not on their mind, but perhaps should be. We’ll even put some stuff in your mind you never wanted there in the first place!
Is it just us, or does it sound like this show has no regular cast? And part of the run time is going to be filled up with “music videos and interstitials”? And Vincent D’Onofrio? And… look, lets just say this poses more questions than it answers. Especially as the press release goes on to mention a few of the sketches, which are… okay, here goes:
Smart Pillow: A couple (David Wenham and Miranda Otto) have their lives turned upside down when they order a manipulative, needy SmartPillow™
Q-Eye: Old-fashioned academic, Ted (played by Bryan Brown), gets Q-Anon to give him a stylish, modern rebrand.
Dad Vibes: A catchy anthem for all the busy daddies out there who get a disproportionate amount of praise for doing the same as, or less than, mum.
“And those are the good ones!” is the kind of thing you’d expect us to say, but no, they’re just the ones with name stars involved – apart from Dad Vibes, which suggests the music videos will be comedy ones. Answers on the back of a postcard as to who’ll be doing the singing (Vincent D’Onofrio?)
It’s totally possible this could work: getting a bunch of people, many of them funny, to do one or two really good sketches each would definitely lift the current strike rate of Australian sketch comedy. And if it doesn’t… well, it’s not like yet another crap Australian sketch show is going to be front page news or anything.
Mind you, “season one of The Moth Effect” is hilariously optimistic.