13 schoolyards, Author at Australian Tumbleweeds - Page 79 of 115

Reality Bites

You may not have noticed what with the all-out media blitz for Josh Thomas’ Please Like Me, but the ABC launched a few other comedy programs in the last few weeks. Press release time! Reality TV is TV right now. Everything else is just making up the numbers. And yet, for all its cultural force,... Read More »

Yet Another Theory About Please Like Me

Okay, so despite Please Like Me tanking in the ratings- yes, despite wall-to-wall media attention in this country it rates less than, oh, every other show you’ve ever heard of – local critics continue to go nuts over it. Here’s a quick cross-section that’s been brought to our attention: There’s this: American and Australian critics... Read More »

The Right Kind of Chap

We’ve been pretty hard on Fairfax’s television reviewers these last few years, what with their blatant nepotism and incessant championing of complete shit. But of late we’ve been wondering: have we gotten them all wrong? Back when Marieke Hardy’s Laid was more than just a punchline to a joke about wasting taxpayer funds, Fairfax’s writers... Read More »

Big Swinging Dicks

“I’m not the problem today mum, you’re the problem” Well, no Josh, you’re always the problem in Please Like Me. But for a brief shining moment early on in episode two of series two, it looked like maybe that problem had been solved. Josh was the put-upon son, his crazy mum was crazy, and as... Read More »

The Micks Are Getting Bigger

When Tony Martin and Mick Molloy officially “split” as a comedy team in late 2007, the smart money was on Tony Martin coming out the winner. Wait, “the winner”? Who the fuck thinks like that? Whatever their personal differences, we don’t know either of them personally and so – because we’re not a pack of... Read More »

Vale Hamish & Andy’s South American Gap Year

How many more times can it go on? How many more examples of the same thing can we put up with before a nation finally says “enough”. It’s just the same thing over and over and over again, repeated with a relentless monotony, lacking fresh insights and wit, providing nothing but the same dull feeling... Read More »

A Project Puzzle

Remember this? Charlie Pickering’s final episode of The Project, after nearly five years at the desk, has aired on TEN, surrounded by family and the Project office staff…. Pickering is set to fly to the US to join his wife Sarah, while the show welcomes Wil Anderson as a guest host this week. Which is why... Read More »

A Reference to that Midnight Oil Lyric We’re All Thinking Of

So regular commentator here Billy C alerted us to the good news: Greg Fleet’s self-funded sitcom Die on Your Feet is finally getting a public airing later this week! We’ve mentioned this one before – The most recent episode of Boxcutters concludes with a discussion of Greg Fleet’s Die On Your Feet, a dramedy featuring... Read More »

Stoops to Conquer

It started, as it always does, with a press release: “I was absolutely devastated when Naz and Aamer decided to split. It was as if the fulcrum of Australian comedy had come asunder. They were just bloody funny.” Helen Razer, comedy reviewer   “We did one last tour… and Aamer decided to add a joke... Read More »

Getting In Early For This One

Normally we see television shows the same way you do: by illegally downloading them from torrents a few weeks after they first aired because we totally forgot they were on. Sometimes, when it’s a particularly dodgy local effort we know no-one else is going to record, we’ll watch them as they happen. But today’s post... Read More »