13 schoolyards, Author at Australian Tumbleweeds - Page 8 of 110
Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em
There’s a lot of reasons why remakes and revivals and adaptations take place [you mean beyond money? – ed.]. The celebrity driven ones – where someone famous says “I want to do this” and they’re famous enough to make it happen – aren’t always the worst, but they’re rarely the best. The problem is that... Read More »
Would That Be Funny? Seems That It Would
Lorin Clarke’s Would that be funny? Growing up with John Clarke is a book about growing up with John Clarke as your father. Let’s get the suspense over with: having Clarke as a dad seems to have been exactly as awesome as you’d expect. The portrait of him here is the kind of thing you’d... Read More »
Time to Fix the Home of Home-Grown Laughs
Press release time! And this one’s a classic: Let’s just take a moment to let that sink in. “ABC is the undisputed home of exciting, new, original Australian comedy”. New? Original? Exciting? Maybe not words we’d use to describe Utopia, a show now into its fifth season. Maybe they mean the reboot of Mother and... Read More »
WTFAQ&A
This week WTFAQ made its debut on the ABC. Not that it felt anything like a debut, as it’s really just the latest version of the kind of lightweight infotainment series the ABC has been flogging since at least Hungry Beast. Every time it returns we tune in to see if this time it’s actually... Read More »
Mother and Son 2: Charnel House
There’s a certain kind of cheap thrill you get when something you had low expectations for somehow manages to be even worse. Good news: being a hater sometimes pays off. And while nobody was expecting the Mother and Son reboot to be anything more than exactly what the words “Mother and Son reboot” promise, the... Read More »
Tonight Ain’t Your Night, Bro
A few people today have noticed something we picked up on yesterday: Channel Ten’s pulled the plug on tonight’s comedy line-up. No Thank God You’re Here, no The Inspired Unemployed. And why? The sudden realisation that Australian comedy is in a death spiral and they were only prolonging the agony? Worse: they don’t want it... Read More »
Gainfully Unemployed
Pranks! They’re the lowest form of comedy and we all know it. They’re the kind of thing your unfunny mate tries to get you to watch during half time at the footy, and you’ve only got yourself to blame because what are you doing at the footy in the first place. But we’ve laughed at... Read More »
Thank God You’re Back
As probably the only Australian comedy format of the 21st century with any nostalgic value attached to it (can’t wait for the Randling revival), we shouldn’t have been surprised that Thank God You’re Here finally made a comeback. But did the magic return with it? Well, that depends: was there ever any magic there in... Read More »
Vale Utopia 2023
Utopia has come to an end, as we knew it would. But is this goodbye, or merely “I’ll be back”? Yeah, an 80s movie reference feels pretty on brand for Utopia. Despite being stocked with young comedic talent, this last season has been a firm reminder that the oldies haven’t retired yet and if this... Read More »
Waste Not, Want Not
Five years ago War on Waste was yet another of the ABC’s attempts to make consumer affairs television entertaining. Now it’s back, and it’s not even trying to be funny. So why are we mentioning it? We’re all used to the ABC’s endless efforts to cash in on nostalgia for things we didn’t even realise... Read More »