Australian Tumbleweeds Awards 2024
Welcome to the Australian Tumbleweeds Awards. People from around Australia have been voting for their best and worst of Australian comedies of last year. But before we get to the results, let’s remind ourselves of what went wrong (and right) with Australian comedy in 2024…
We can usually tell what kind of a year Australian comedy is having by the amount of personal abuse we get. Things going well, the future looks bright, funny people are getting big laughs? All quiet on the personal front. Shows getting axed, stagnant vibes, everyone half decent is heading overseas? Oh look, another nameless post letting us know we’re not qualified to make jokes about Wil Anderson because we’re losers (shit, they’re onto us – ed). Guess what was clogging up our inbox in 2024?
Let’s be honest: it was hard not to be frustrated by the state of comedy over the last year. What good shows we had remained the same good shows we had in previous years, while the few new comedies we had either featured people now entering their fourth decade on Australian television or formats that had been lifted from overseas networks (and before that, comedy festival shows). These weren’t automatically bad things, of course – but they weren’t exciting things either, and without excitement comedy is always going to struggle.
The decent shows felt a little tired; the rubbish shows just kept on coming. The ABC, under the leadership of new scripted boss Chris Oliver-Taylor, axed pretty much every comedy program in development (including a second series of Aunty Donna’s Coffee Cafe) for 2024; then they axed Oliver-Taylor himself for good measure. Meanwhile, garbage well past its use-by date like The Weekly and just about everything hosted by Wil Anderson kept on being smeared across our screens. Coming in with a new broom doesn’t work if you don’t scrape the shit off it first.
Unlike scripted drama, where various streaming services picked up the slack after the commercial networks gave up on it, free-to-air remains the only game in town for local comedy. And as games go, it’s increasingly feeling like the Hey Hey it’s Saturday board game only with half the pieces missing. The funny half too – all the female co-hosts and Trevor Marmalade are gone, but somehow there’s a half dozen extra Plucka Ducks mixed in.
For example, the Working Dog team are all nearing retirement age; what if they decide they’ve had enough of putting out three weekly shows every year? There goes the entirety of the commercial networks comedy output unless you count that Andy Lee panel show and let’s not. Is it healthy for an entire genre of entertainment to be dependent on a production team that are all pushing 60 and made Pacific Heat and Any Questions For Ben? Don’t bother rolling the dice, we’re about to find out anyway.
And they’re the good guys. As previously mentioned, the ABC have already doubled down on a policy of “fuck comedy”, even though their only real ratings success (both locally and internationally) this decade has been Fisk. Competent management would be trawling the comedy clubs with cash in both hands looking for experienced middle-aged comedians with a sitcom idea up their sleeve: instead, we’re getting a second season of the Mother & Son reboot.
So no wonder in 2024 we got a bunch of emails acting like a collection of out-of-date personal information dug up by an News Corp journalist in 2012 was going to get us to back down on our controversial stance that… *checks notes* Question Everything was pissweak. This was was not a year that got anyone excited about the the state of comedy, and the only good news was that things could only get worse.
Worst Sketch or Short Form Comedy
Runner-up
Taskmaster Australia
21% of the total votes
Taskmaster is not an aggressively bad show, which pretty much passes for high praise in 2024. But it is a show where a little goes a long way: like most series of its kind, you could edit it down to a tight 90 minute special and still keep all the good stuff. Instead, we had two seasons of it: who knew Australian television could get so much mileage out of that workplace prank where you send the new guy down to the hardware store for a bunch of left-handed screws.
Runner-up
The Weekly/The Yearly with Charlie Pickering
46% of the total votes
How is this still on the air? Not in the sense of “why is this still being made” because we all know the ABC sees Charlie Pickering as a vital asset filed under “emergency Wil Anderson”. But in 2024 The Weekly was looking so half-arsed, so clearly thrown together by one of Pickering’s mates scraping social media for jokes and thinking they were getting away with it because the jokes were all from 2023, that if you squinted you could literally see through the threadbare show to the repeats of Vera showing over on ABC Family.
Winner
The Inspired Unemployed (Impractical) Jokers
62% of the total votes
Pranks! They grow up so fast and then refuse to leave home. The sole innovation in series one – that the team were tormenting each other, with the general public bystanders rather than victims – was already struggling after a few episodes; by this second season the fact the cast were interchangeable nobodies meant even that didn’t work. Possibly if the pranks themselves had been outrageously original and thought-provokingly insightful a second bite at the cherry would have been worth it. They weren’t, and it wasn’t.
What voters said about The Inspired Unemployed (Impractical) Jokers
Despite the occasional snigger, Inspired Unemployed… basically comes across as four interchangeable smug guys that think they’re so hilarious. They may be surprised to know it does get old at some point.
Honestly pretty shitful. The original worked because it was 1. innovative, 2. of its time, and 3. by actual comedians rather than internet idiots. The Inspired Unemployed… changed the vibe from cringing with the cast to cringing at them, and yes I hate-watched the whole series. At least it was better than the UK version.
It’s not comedy when you humiliate others for a laugh with your mates.
Worst Sitcom or Narrative Comedy
Runner-up
Colin from Accounts
15% of the total votes
There have been plenty of bland but inexplicably popular TV shows over the years, but whatever appeal Colin from Accounts had in its first season seems to be disappearing after its second. Maybe it was because even the kind of viewer who puts a show on so it’s not silent in the background when they’re scrolling social media thought “Hang on, isn’t this like every other comedy-drama I’ve had on in the background over the past couple of years?”
Runner-up
Austin
22% of the total votes
There were a few more laughs to be enjoyed – and reasons to pay attention – in this series about a young guy with autism who finally gets to meet his real father. But not many. Despite some amusing minor characters and the occasional on-point joke, this was a show that at its heart wanted to be more than funny. It tried to make you go “Aaaawwww”. And that’s never a good way to do comedy.
Winner
The Office (Australia)
56% of the total votes
Given what we’ve just said, it might seem contradictory that one of the few sitcoms or narrative comedies released in 2024 that genuinely wanted to be funny has won this award. But The Office (Australia) really was terrible. No one needed to revive The Office in 2024, and an Australian take on the concept didn’t bring much to the party. As for the novelty of a female lead, isn’t it great to see that women can screw up a workplace just like men? It’s what every feminist has been fighting for.
What voters said about The Office (Australia)
Make an Australian version of The Office, written by Kiwis and copying the American version. Reminds me of the good old days, where “bottom of the harbour” schemes were all the rage.
A line was crossed this year. A declaration of “We do not have original ideas, we do not welcome original ideas. We will not copy fresh ideas, we do not want to succeed for we do not give a fuck about entertainment.” I’m sure many others have put it better but I’m still insulted by this.
Stop flogging an already dead horse.
Worst Panel, Game or Stand-up Show
Runner-up
Question Everything
28% of the total votes
Question Everything spent fair a bit of time in 2024 justifying itself as a training ground for new comedy talent. The implication being that if you don’t enjoy Question Everything it’s because the new talent sucks. Not that we ever saw that new talent on screen, of course. We just see people we’ve been seeing in various ABC shows for years. Not having the new talent on screen, and kind of blaming of them how terrible this show is one way to justify the fact that the only people who get to front shows on the ABC are people who’ve already fronted shows on the ABC, we guess. And a decent satirist could get some comedy out of all this PR spin and corporate machinations. Sadly, they won’t get the chance. Because the ABC has already spent all its money on more episodes of Question Everything.
Runner-up
The Inspired Unemployed (Impractical) Jokers
35% of the total votes
Given that most of the rest of Australian comedy in 2024 felt like some kind of prank on the audience, this was at least honest that it was a pranks show. It was a shit pranks show, and pranks make for bad comedy. But if you’re voluntarily watching a pranks show on TV, you get what you get.
Winner
The Australian Roast of John Cleese
46% of the total votes
No one tuning in to see John Cleese doing new comedy in 2024 is expecting a comedian in their prime. But it was reasonable to expect that the people roasting him – many of whom were young enough to be his grandchildren – might have something funny to say. And they did, occasionally. But they mainly said the exact same funny things as the previous person who’d got up to roast Cleese: he’s had a lot of wives; he’s been in a lot of bad films…you get the idea. A lot of money was spent on getting Cleese to come to Australia to appear in this. Was there really no money left to pay someone to give every speaker a different joke about one of his ex-wives or bad movies? We don’t know about his ex-wives, but we’ve seen some of his bad movies and there’s some golden comedy opportunities in them hills.
What voters said about The Australian Roast of John Cleese
John Cleese is a grumpy old man who no longer deserves a platform to be a dickhead.
If you’re going to do roasts, swear! For fucks sake! Even John Cleese overplayed covering his head with his blazer towards the end, looking bored and embarrassed, not knowing 99% of the roasters. Then again, Joel Creasey and John Cleese may be Creasey And Cleesey Besties.
The Australian Roast of John Cleese, almost had comedians who’ve actually seen him before, and some of them even bothered to read their script beforehand! What a pleasure it was to pay the arrogant grumpy conservative bastard and his daughter to come out here for something that was forgotten as soon as it was released.
Worst Topical or Satirical Show
Runner-up
Question Everything
28% of the total votes
You know when people talk about failsons? People who don’t have any real ability or talent but keep on being pushed upwards because of connections or who they’re related to until they turn up in some highly coveted position that in a fair society would have gone to someone who knew what they were doing and then they just sit there doing bugger all but soaking up resources they’ve neither earned nor deserved? Imagine how shit a television show like that would be. Imagine how frustrating it’d be to see it turn up on prime time week in week out while the hosts kept changing their story, going from how the point was to lift the lid on how the media worked to no, wait, it was really about training a next generation of comedians to wait, no, remember newspapers, lets hold newspapers like anyone under 50 knows what they are and stare blankly into the camera, that should be good enough for another eight episodes.
Runner-up
Gruen
35% of the total votes
At least there was a point to Gruen once. It’s long gone now of course, but once upon a time Gruen – which was basically “let’s combine one of those World’s Funniest Commercials specials with a panel show” – was kind of relevant to some people’s lives. Those people weren’t actually watching the ABC of course, because ABC viewers don’t watch commercial television so an ABC series about advertising is like a Channel Seven show about books, but you could hear the premise of Gruen and think “yeah, the ABC probably should make a show like that”. And then next thing you know it’s 2024 and it’s like they’re still broadcasting Pot Black.
Winner
The Weekly/The Yearly with Charlie Pickering
47% of the total votes
Here’s a serious question: are all the shows in this category really just the same show under different titles? We watched all of them throughout 2024 and honestly we’re not sure. The ABC seems to have found its default tone for topical comedy – whether mandated from upstairs or just what you get when you hire the same kind of person to do everything – and unless your philosophy of humour is “when the guy in the suit stops talking, laugh”, it all sucks. Creative people are rightly worried that AI is coming for their jobs; if these shows are any guide, AI’s been running ABC comedy for years.
What voters said about The Weekly/The Yearly with Charlie Pickering
To paraphrase Paul Keating: The satire of The Weekly/The Yearly with Charlie Pickering is like being flogged with warm lettuce.
Charlie Pickering is the government literally trying to subsidise the dead horse flogging industry.
A decade now of pretending to be John Oliver. Maybe in another 10 years it’ll start being funny.
Worst Comedy Film
Runner-up
Audrey
13% of the total votes
While lots of Australian TV shows get away with being called comedies if they have occasional comedic elements, Australian films get away with being called comedies if they merely have a quirky premise and a character with a niche sexual kink. In this film, the titular character ends up in a coma after an accident and suddenly her Mum, Dad and sister start having great luck in everything they do. There was presumably the intention that this film would make some kind of deeper point with this premise, but how it played out was that the Dad gets involved in Christian porn, the Mum impersonates Audrey in the hope of rekindling her acting career, and the sister tries to steal Audrey’s boyfriend. So, the point being made was that people are selfish dickheads?
Runner-up
The Emu War
29% of the total votes
The thing about The Emu War is that while yes, it’s not very good, it’s trying to do so many different things that even if it’s not good at one of them… or the next one… or the one after that… then at least when the end credits roll you can say… hang on, none of that was any good. Oh all right, there was the occasional decent joke sprinkled in. The part where the crack special forces team were given suicide pills hidden in their teeth and they all accidentally bit down on them was dumb enough to get a laugh. Which is more than any of the other films in this category managed.
Winner
Nugget is Dead? A Christmas Story
36% of the total votes
No one who’s watched more than one of these annual Christmas films from Stan expects to see perfection, but this wasn’t even the sort of half-arsed movie you could enjoy after you’d had a few. This was unfocused and weird, lurching from simplistic visual comedy to dissections of peoples’ mental health to a will-they-won’t-they romance plot. And then a dog died. It was also amongst the funniest films made in Australia this year. Which either says something terrifying about the state of our film industry or makes us a bunch of dog death-wishing sickos. It’s probably a bit of both, to be honest.
What voters said about Nugget is Dead? A Christmas Story
Of course an Australian spin on a family Christmas comedy is to a) make it not funny and b) make it very depressing and KILL THE DOG.
Look, I haven’t seen any of them but there is no way in HELL that I want to watch a movie about a dog dying, let alone on Christmas Day.
Based on premise alone as none seen. A dog is questionably dead wins.
Best New Comedy
Runner-up
Shaun Micallef’s Origin Odyssey
13% of the total votes
Shaun Micallef, quality interviewer: who saw that coming? This might not have been a constant stream of hilarity, but as a mix of travel show and personal reflection Micallef managed to get the most out of both well-worn formats. We saw the sights and we saw a side of a bunch of local comedians that we hadn’t seen before: Aaron Chen getting emotional about his father’s struggles and treating Micallef like, well, a surrogate uncle at the very least made for surprisingly warm and effecting viewing. And that was just the first episode, though it’s not like Wippa cracked open like a over-emotional walnut or anything.
Runner-up
Shaun Micallef’s Eve of Destruction
20% of the total votes
Shaun Micallef, quality interviewer: who saw that… hang on a second. Despite seemingly being made for pocket change using items fished out of a dumpster and featuring guests who more often than not seemed slightly puzzled to be there, as interview shows go this was a joy to behold. Turns out having a host who’s actually interested in his guests and having guests who aren’t there to plug their latest project leaves a lot of space for a conversation to go in weird and funny directions. Maybe it wasn’t prime Micallef, but it was still a lot better than no Micallef.
Winner
Guy Montgomery’s Guy-Mont Spelling Bee
65% of the total votes
It’s not fair to say this won best new comedy of 2024 in large part because it was the only new comedy of 2024. On the other hand, it’s not like the runners-up in this category were going for big laughs. This was about as funny as a spelling bee can get, which might be damning with faint praise but being a comedy built around an extremely unfunny subject was kind of the point. So while there were a few rough edges (which again, were part of what made it work) and a couple episodes that could have been a little shorter, this is still a worthy winner. Guy Montgomery is a real talent as both a host and a comedy character, every appearance from Aaron Chen was gold, and even when the contestants weren’t great the show never let them stink up the joint. It’s honestly a surprise that something this offbeat got renewed by the ABC: guess their love of game shows really does know no bounds.
What voters said about Guy Montgomery’s Guy-Mont Spelling Bee…
Guy Montgomery has been a favourite of mine for years and the original spelling bee format got me through lockdown after lockdown. Aaron Chen was my pick for the Taskmaster’s Assistant, and his role here proves how good he is at being a quirky foil to a slightly grumpy leader. The riddles are predictable and yet they get me every time. This show is also how I discovered Dan Rath, who has been my favourite comedy find of the year.
Guy Mont Spelling Bee is subversive, unpredictable and full of surprises, unlike pretty much everything else on the ABC. Well done to Aunty for renewing it, despite the format’s lack of appeal for the rapidly ageing ABC audience.
Best new TV show is an NZ format with a full season under its belt at home. Love Guy and his show to bits, but does make me wonder what could be achieved with a similar no-frills budget if the ABC were willing to trust new people and ideas, instead of being content to re-create proven success.
Best Comedy
Runner-up
Tony Martin’s Sizzletown
29% of the total votes
It’s hard to think of an Australian writer/performer who’s got as good an ear for characters as Tony Martin. And almost seven years on from the first episode it’s clear that he and Matt Dower (whose production skills are key to the show’s success) are showing no signs of running out of steam. In 2024, Sizzletown not only brought us the usual roster of reliably funny characters but also a fantastic sketch in which the famously sport-averse Martin took on the role of an AFL footballer commentator and unleashed a surprising new player onto the field. It’s the kind of weird inventiveness we rarely see in Australian comedy – in any medium – and the huge number of subscribers and supporters of Sizzletown prove that there’s a real, big, under-served audience for this type of humour.
Runner-up
Guy Montgomery’s Guy-Mont Spelling Bee
32% of the total votes
Guy Montgomery’s Guy-Mont Spelling Bee is the kind of show we’d like to see more of. The sort of show which takes an anything-can-happen comedic approach to a format that’s reliable but a bit dull. It wasn’t all brilliant: this started as a live show and needs some more work to turn into something that really works for TV – and it was in a timeslot that was way too long – but at least it wasn’t another serious quiz show aimed squarely at people aged 65+.
Winner
Fisk
51% of the total votes
If Australian comedy in 2024 has taught us anything it’s that those in charge of ABC comedy don’t have a clue. We don’t want more comedy dramas or panel shows, we want more Fisks. Fisk is funny. Fisk picks up on and makes us laugh at the stupid stuff we see around us. Fisk has characters we look forward to seeing again. And people like Fisk. They watch it in huge numbers and want to see more of it. So, more episodes of Fisk would be great, for as long as the team can maintain the quality. But also we want more shows like Fisk. Shows that are just funny. Not shows about something, not shows trying to make us feel all fuzzy, but shows that make us laugh hard and loud.
What voters said about Fisk
Fisk continues to be top notch. Zero notes. More please.
Thank god for Fisk, a sitcom that just wants to be funny.
Number 1 is definitely Fisk. Every season has been outstanding.
We asked our readers… What did you think of comedy in 2024?
So much of it is people showing off on panels, and the rest is quirky drama. I couldn’t in good conscience vote for anything as ‘best’. It was all very disheartening
Not getting any better.
Marginally better than last year. At least a few new shows.
The good stuff was good, the bad stuff was horrendous and tired.
It was okay. Fresh Blood is always a highlight, and I wish more shows would get picked up from their pilots. I watched more Grouse House and Aunty Donna productions than I did terrestrial comedy television, and they are doing an insane amount to platform some incredible new comedians. Also, I want to marry everyone at Working Dog.
Is TV comedy just dying alongside broadcast TV?
Sizzletown was a rare highlight, Audrey was as bad as it got. Most everything else I stumbled across felt somewhere on the continuum of mediocre, forgettable and yet another effort by the same circle jerk of local ‘stars’.
Bleak. Grim. Sending me into a depression spiral.
Shocked (Fam Time release?!) dismayed (Shaun Micallef’s Eve of Destruction) and unsurprised (The Weekly still extant). Fisk and Guy Mont-Spelling Bee: solid and enjoyable in an otherwise demoralising year. With the public broadcaster our main source of local comedy production besides (and with) Working Dog, without serious internal shake-up there will simply be no more local TV. Fresh Blood being so meagre makes it clear that anyone who wants to produce episodic comedy in Australia should move overseas, because even the people supposedly here to help obviously hate it, and you.
2024 was the best year for comedy in living memory, which is not so much a compliment as it is an indictment of living memory. For all the chaff, there were the taut Working Dog shows, Guy Mont’s Spelling Bee, Fisk, VHS Revue, and probably a few others. Actually having multiple options felt like a cornucopia of riches, and if you can successfully ignore the other rubbish that fills the airwaves, you end up with a not-terrible, you can paint a pretty neat picture of Australian comedy. There are a lot of fresh faces populating these particular shows that give me some small hope for the future.
On the other hand, Shaun Micallef is doing interview shows and travelogues, and even if he does them better than anyone else, there’s something a bit depressing about seeing the commissioners unwilling to greenlight anything for our finest comedic mind but the most trad of formats. We can’t expect him to keep Milo Kerriganning forever, but there’s something a little canary in the coal mine about this particular evolution.
I didn’t watch much – but did see a lot of standup.
Behind Mitch McTaggart, the funniest person on Australian TV is Manu from MKR, which pretty much says everything about Australian comedy on TV in 2024.
As a person who is in favour of narrative comedy as a concept, thank god for Fisk – the sole bright spot in that particular area.
Hard to tell considering that it feels like it barely had a presence. Australian TV seems more focused on drama or reality TV and it’s been like that for a while.
The fact that Channel 7 decided to air a two-part special on The Best of The Russell Gilbert Show (a show that only had seven episodes!) as filler when they couldn’t be arsed to make Talking Footy during the Olympics probably tells you everything you need to know about how comedy is seen by the industry right now.
A mixed bag. A smattering of solid offerings, but mostly dross. Darn shame too; we used to be really good at making funny things but somewhere along the way, we forgot how. It’s nice to be nostalgic (TGYH), but the problem is – no TV network, no film studio, and no commercial radio business is going to take a chance on something new, something interesting, or something fucking subversive. We have become far too risk-averse in the media and it’s a sad state of affairs.
Best bet: find the funny elsewhere. Podcasts, stand-up comedy, improv shows, online humour publications, community radio or your weird mate in the cubicle next to you because unfortunately, traditional media doesn’t give a gold-plated shit about comedy in this country in 2024 and 2025 doesn’t look any brighter.
Almost entirely industrialised.
The best example of the Australian comedy industry in 2024 is the revamped Thank God You’re Here: Sure, Tom Gleisner and Shane Bourne have moved aside from their permanent on-camera roles to keep things fresh, but their replacements are all familiar faces with long careers, behind the scenes it’s still Tommy G making sure the show chugs along, and any genuinely newish faces can be relied upon to stick to the prompts and not step too far out of line. A good example of some other dying institutions too, really…
I want to be surprised one year in a good way. There were rumours of an Australian Office for a few years now but people laughed it off as stupid because who would believe that? Well fuck you, they did it. They held us down and spat in our mouths then told us we like it. And people did. That’s what we’ve come to. I’m expecting an Australian version of Family Guy this year because why not? Why the fuck not? It’ll be Andrew O’Keefe’s comeback project and we’ll gobble it up like silly little shits because we no longer know what comedy is.
As ordinary as ever. The loss of Mad as Hell is still felt.
Was I supposed to laugh?
Not bad. Fisk and Colin showed we can do narrative while the panels delivered. Some of the new stuff tried too desperately to be young though.
ABC seems more bland than usual these days. And why why why is The Weekly still on? It’s literally been on for a decade and it’s been bad the entire time. Surely it’s time for something new?
Too much “I’m shit, laugh at me” where there’s no actual joke. As in, no setup or follow through, no actual comedic device, no observation or twist… it’s just someone being shit at something. So anyway I’m just an old man yelling at a form in the cloud, if it’s making someone else happy good for them.
Meh. Aside from a few hits like Fisk and Day Job, I’ve been to funerals that are funnier than most stuff put out this year.
Perhaps the praise for Australian comedy isn’t that it is good, but that it’s being kept alive by a team of mad scientists attempting to mimic Frankenstein’s monster with an entire concept.
A roller-coaster ride of thrills and cringe.
I laughed at a few of these shows, so I’m pretty satisfied.
Pale and stale. A severe lack of originality, talent and creativity. With people like Shaun Micallef, Glenn Robins, and Working Dog, doing all the heavy lifting, it’s an indication that the contemporary class of today are nowhere near the high standard of the old warriors of comedy. How many times have we said this?
Apart from Fisk and The Cheap Seats, not a lot to get too invested in. If you are looking for fresh Aussie comedy, look to social media. It’s DOA on any screen bigger than your phone.
It was nice to see newer comedians platformed a bit more, but there could always be improvement.
Yet another year with little truly new comedy – even Guy Montgomery’s Spelling Bee has been done live and in NZ on channel 3 before.
Worse – it’s a lot of the old sad faces filling screens (I’m looking at you here Wil Anderson) where there should be the next generation come.
Weak and the ABC continues to make baffling choices. Felt pitiful looking at the list that the most interesting ones were from the shorts they released and no proper half hours.
There is no comedy in Australia and it is what we deserve.
Thank goodness for Kitty Flanagan. She and her team delivered where most others didn’t.
Tired, formulaic. Here’s to a brighter, funnier 2025.
The above is a selection of the many comments we received. Thank you for voting and commenting, and we’ll be back soon with reviews of comedies released in 2025…
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