Comedy TV

Get Krack!n all at sea (well, on a river)

Get Krack!n, a series of variable quality at the best of times, started its second series with an episode that could best be described as…well…variable. The show opened with Kate and Kate presenting the last of a series of “’round Australia” episodes live from a paddle steamer on the Murray River at Echuca Moama. And according... Read More »

Super Summer Comedy Round-up

Hey, we’re back for 2019! And given that comedy never sleeps these days, here’s our round-up of all the comedy you may have missed or deliberately avoided so far this year. A Rational Fear Dan Ilic’s A Rational Fear has been an off-again/on-again satirical radio show and/or podcast for the past seven years, being revived, shelved or re-worked... Read More »

Vale Australian Television Comedy 2018

Australian television comedy ended 2018 the same way it began: with Charlie Pickering prattling on like a private school debating student putting in the bare minimum effort because daddy’s money is all he really needs to win an argument. If you wanted to sum up the ABC’s year in comedy, the moment where Pickering ended... Read More »

Vale Mad as Hell and, uh… Tomorrow When the War Began?

Having Mad as Hell on our screens is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it’s the best Australian comedy – and probably the best in all categories including drama, arts coverage and religious programming – television program currently airing. It’s definitely the only thing currently going that could legitimately be called “world class”, and... Read More »

Fresh Blood – Be Your Own Boss

While we’ll all have to wait until next year to see Chris Lilley’s exciting new controversial character, fans of Lilley-style comedy may already be enjoying Be Your Own Boss, the last of the Fresh Blood pilots to air (it’s also on iView and YouTube). But first, let’s clarify what we mean by Lilley-style in relation... Read More »

Fresh Blood: The Angus Project

The Angus Project was another of last year’s Fresh Blood pilots that we thought would work as a full-length sitcom. Well, we said “It could work”, which is about as good as you’re likely to get from us. But, like Koala Man, another Fresh Blood show we thought was promising but didn’t work, The Angus... Read More »

Marriage is a Struggle

They bumped up last week’s episode of How to Stay Married to an earlier timeslot without telling us so we had to wait until yesterday’s repeat to get caught up because TV is free but bandwidth costs and Peter Helliar’s latest effort isn’t really something we want to think about spending money on. Was it... Read More »

Fresh Blood: Why Are You Like This?

It’s fair to say that we hated Why Are You Like This? when we reviewed the initial Fresh Blood sketches last year. So, we were pleasantly surprised by the recently-aired pilot edition (also available on iView and YouTube). The Why Are You Like This? pilot features the same characters, Penny played by Naomi Higgins and... Read More »

It’s a bird, It’s a plane, It’s a Koala Man pilot

Definitely one of the better entrants in last year’s Fresh Blood, animated superhero series Koala Man has now been made into a full-length pilot episode. (You can watch it on iView along with the pilots from the three other Fresh Blood winners – and we’ll be posting reviews of each one over the next couple... Read More »

Vale Have You Been Paying Attention? series 6

Have You Been Paying Attention? is a constant on our screens. It’s on air somewhere between 25-30 times a year, providing solid, easy-going laughs on a night of the week when most people are tired and cranky, and reluctantly staring down the barrel of another four days at work. It’s a tonic that most people... Read More »