It’s the little things

What have Gristmill been doing since Upper Middle Bogan, you may be wondering. The answer is making fifteen 15-minute episodes of a kid’s comedy called Little Lunch. Based on books by Danny Katz, these snack-size stories are told through the eyes of six primary school children.

The first episode, which aired on ABC3 this afternoon, centres on problem child Rory who’s sent to the Principal’s office for biting fellow pupil Melanie. But as Rory, Melanie, brain box and To Kill A Mockingbird reference Atticus, and various other students explain, Rory’s always doing this kind of thing – he even has his own chair in the corner in the Principal’s office called Rory’s Spot. Cut to Rory in his Spot cooling his heels yet again, but finding it tough going as the Principal’s not there to tell him off all the time. But just as Rory’s about to go off the wall again, the bell rings for little lunch and the kids start chucking notes to him through the window. Hooray! Boredom busted!

If this sounds potentially funny, at least to kids, it probably is, although as adults we struggled a bit: the story is fairly inconsequential and the gags aren’t exactly side-splitters. To be fair, the show’s intended audience of primary school kids probably don’t find Shaun Micallef or Clarke & Dawe very funny, so we’re not going to go too hard on Little Lunch – it’s not made to amuse us.

Or to put it another way, if you’re a parent and your kids have seen this we’d be interested to know what you and they thought. But if you’re an adult hoping for more comedy from the Gristmill gang, maybe give Very Small Business a re-watch instead, because based on episode 1 Little Lunch isn’t one of those kids comedies that has a few gags aimed at the parents – this is strictly for the kids.