Well, it seems the path to success in the United States for Australian comedians is clear: get your arse onto Conan O’Brien’s talk show: “YOU’RE a very strange fellow,” said Conan O’Brien after watching Aussie comedian Sam Simmons perform a stand-up routine on his talk show on Tuesday. The five minute set was an opportunity... Read More »
Tractor Monkeys is back! Can’t you feel the excitement in the air? The electricity humming across this great land as in homes and pubs and vacant lots people look up with a thrill in their hearts at the news that Tractor Monkeys is back! Finally life has meaning again. Finally we have cause to go... Read More »
Well, isn’t this a surprising turn of events: Guess which character is coming back in my new show? http://t.co/nTyz38JrRO pic.twitter.com/j6MNUsYt26 — Chris Lilley (@ChrisLilley) September 4, 2013 Hmm… could it be the one that involves Lilley putting on an unlikely costume for a 40-something man then saying “outrageous” things before the music gets all serious... Read More »
Flops on Australian television work one of two ways: they get to air and stink so badly they’re axed, or you read about someone desperately trying to talk up a project that’s clearly never going to happen. What we almost never see is the show that progresses a long way down the track before getting... Read More »
Usually when a television show – especially a comedy – goes off the rails, it’s because those rails were faulty from the start. Remember how Randling filmed every single episode of it’s 27 episode run before a single one went to air? Oh how we laughed – not at the show, but at the foolishness... Read More »
For a while there it looked like we were going to be in some serious trouble. Let’s set the scene: after years of struggling in the wilderness after the fizzle that was Micallef Tonight, followed by a few years of good solid game show hosting on Talkin’ ’bout Your Generation, Shaun Micallef had not one... Read More »
From the department of No Shit, Sherlock, comes this startling admission from ABC chief Mark Scott: Scott told Mumbrella’s sister title Encore: “One of the things we did with Randling that we learned from, and this was partly a budget thing, was that we locked all that away. It was all locked away before it... Read More »
Here’s the thing: on the day after the final episode of Randling aired we went through all the major metropolitan newspapers looking to see on which page they announced the winner. A 27 week prime-time competition featuring many of Australia’s premiere comedians and social commentators had all been building up to one big result: of... Read More »
So on Wednesday while doing our usual browse through the lists of upcoming DVD releases in the desperate hope that someone will finally bring out a Newstopia collection – or more realistically considering our tastes, a Let Loose Live / Live From Planet Earth box set with cast & crew commentary – we noticed something... Read More »
Short answer: yes. Or no. Maybe? Dammit, we’re going to have to think about this one for a moment. Let’s back up for a second. Last weeks episode of The Hamster Wheel had a segment on sexism in the Australian media. Yay Chaser! Or perhaps not, as a few people have expressed some doubts about... Read More »