It’s Time to Hit the Road: Shaun Micallef’s Origin Odyssey

Now that Shaun Micallef’s entered the “not trying to be funny” stage of his career with Eve of Destruction and now Origin Odyssey, it’s time to ask: is there anything here for comedy fans? Sure, it features comedians each week. So did that Julia Zemiro show where they did burnouts in a parking lot and nobody was laughing there.

After watching the first episode we can safely say that… maybe? There’s definitely some funny moments in this first episode, where Micallef takes Aaron Chen – in only his second show airing Tuesday nights at 7.30, what with him also being in the new series of Taskmaster over on 10 – back to China. There they visit a bunch of places associated with his father’s ten years working on a pig farm due to a Chinese cultural policy they’re not allowed to mention.

Micallef’s voice over is in no way dry and humourless, and there’s more than one decent gag built around odd street signs. Chen is a funny guy too: the bit where Micallef suggests some bland platitude is a good guide to life and he snaps back “maybe your life” is possibly the funniest thing on Australian television this week. And this is the week The Cheap Seats introduced us to the concept of “the wanket”.

But this is basically a mash-up of a bunch of different formats. There’s the tried and tested “comedians go on holiday, do dumb stuff” one, right down to an opening featuring dueling Trump impressions that could almost have come out of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s epic salute to / takedown of the genre The Trip. There’s also a hefty chunk of “comedians explore their family tree, are confronted with the past” mixed in, especially during the back half.

This stretch is a lot lighter on laughs. It’s not exactly tear-jerking stuff, but Chen is clearly taking a few emotional knocks being confronted with the physicality of what his father went through. He also gets to hang with a bunch of relatives. Which is nice and also occasionally feels like Micallef is hosting an outdoors version of This Is Your Life.

The dynamic will be different with different comedians – Wippa next week seems closer to being Micallef’s peer, in age if not comedic ability – but here the vibe is very much “Chen’s comedy dad is taking him on an emotional journey”. Chen even points out that he’s roughly the same age as Micallef’s oldest son. Can Micallef paint as well as Chen’s real dad? If so, get those adoption papers ready.

This burst of dad vibes – “avuncular” is probably the technical term – isn’t something we’ve seen a lot of from the previously ageless Micallef. To be honest, it’s probably not great comedy-wise. His particular style of comedy has always relied on energy and a certain intellectual silliness: a laconic John Clarke style humourist he is not. Possibly he’ll find a way to make being the nation’s well-meaning dad funny; possibly there’s still a bit more gas left in the tank. But here at least, the old Micallef is taking a back seat and a newer yet older Micallef is to the fore.

As we find ourselves saying a lot these days; this is good television, but it isn’t exactly good comedy. It’s not trying to be. In this post Mad as Hell period Micallef seems committed to lowering expectations around him being a wacky prankster every time he turns up on screen. And there are some funny moments here, even beyond Chen’s “edgy” early material as a teenage stand-up.

It’s just that once again the funniest man on Australian television is making Australian television that isn’t really trying to be funny. It’d be nice if someone was.